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ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


TN 


WONDERLAND 




LEWIS CARROLL. 1. 


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|£- ' ©OPVR<<a/|/' 

h. 28 1893 

Of 

2^5 K 6 

NEW YORK : 46 East 14th Street. 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

BOSTON : 100 Purchase Street. 



Copyright, 1893, 

BY 

Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 

* 2 .- 3A?')'?.. 


Norfrioot) IPress : 

Berwick & Smith, Boston, U.S.A. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Down the Rabbit-Hole 3 

II. The Pool of Tears 19 

III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale ... 35 

IV. The Rabbit sends in a Little Bill . . 49 

V. Advice from a Caterpillar 69 

VI. Pig and Pepper . . . 89 

VII. A Mad Tea-Party 109 

VIII. The Queen’s Croquet-Ground 129 

IX. The Mock Turtle’s Story 149 

X. The Lobster Quadrille 169 

XI. Who stole the Tarts 187 

XII. Alice’s Evidence 203 









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I 


















All in the golden afternoon 
Full leisurely we glide ; 

For both our oars, with little skill, 

By little arms are plied, 

While little hands make vain pretence 
Our wanderings to guide. 

Ah, cruel Three ! In such an hour, 
Beneath such dreamy weather, 

To beg a tale, of breath too weak 
To stir the tiniest feather ! 

Yet what can one poor voice avail 
Against three tongues together ? 

Imperious Prima flashes forth 
Her edict to “ begin it ” — 

In gentler tones Secunda hopes 
“There will be nonsense in it ” — 


While Tertia interrupts the tale 
Not more than once a minute. 


Anon, to sudden silence won, 

In fancy they pursue 
The dream-child moving through a land 
Of wonders wild and new, 

In friendly chat with bird or beast — 
And half believe it true. 


And ever, as the story drained 
The wells of fancy dry, 

And faintly strove that weary one 
To put the subject by, 

“ The rest next time — ” “ It is next time ! 

The happy voices cry. 


Thus grew the tale of Wonderland : 

Thus slowly, one by one, 

Its quaint events were hammered out — 
And now the tale is done, 

And home we steer, a merry crew, 
Beneath the setting sun. 


Alice ! a childish story take, 

And with a gentle hand 
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined 
In Memory’s mystic band, 

Like pilgrim’s withered wreath of flowers 


Plucked in a far-off land. 


\ 


CHAPTER I. 


DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE. 






















































CHAPTER I. 


DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE. 

Alice was beginning to get very tired of 
sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having 
nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped 
into the book her sister was reading, but it 
had no pictures or conversations in it, “and 



4 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 

what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, 
“without pictures or conversations?” 

So she was considering in her own mind ( as 
well as she could, for the hot day made her 
feel very sleepy and stupid ) whether the 
pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be 
worth the trouble of getting up and picking 
the daisies, when suddenly a white rabbit with 
pink eyes ran close by her. 

There was nothing so very remarkable in 
that; nor did Alice think it so very much out 
of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I shall be too late!” 
(when she thought it over afterwards, it oc- 
curred to her that she ought to have won- 
dered at this, but at the time it all seemed 
quite natural ) ; but when the Rabbit actually 
took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket , and 
looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started 
to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that 
she had never before seen a rabbit with either 
a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take out of 


DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE. 


5 


it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across 
the field after it, and was just in time to see 
it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the 
hedge. 

In another moment down went Alice after 
it, never once considering how in the world she 
was to get out again. 

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tun- 
nel for some way, and then dipped suddenly 
down, so suddenly that Alice had not a mo- 
ment to think about stopping herself before 
she found herself falling down what seemed to 
be a very deep well. 

Either the well was very deep, or she fell 
very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she 
went down to look about her, and to wonder 
what was going to happen next. First, she 
tried to look down and make out what she was 
coming to, but it was too dark to see anything ; 
then she looked at the sides of the well, and 
noticed that they were filled with cupboards 
and bookshelves : here and there she saw maps 


6 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 

and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down 
a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it 
was labelled “orange marmalade,” but 
to her great disappointment it was empty: 
she did not like to drop the jar for fear of 
killing somebody underneath, so managed to 
put it into one of the cupboards as she fell 
past it. 

“Well!” thought Alice to herself, “after 
such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of 
tumbling down-stairs! How brave they’ll all 
think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say 
anything about it, even if I fell off the top 
of the house ! ” ( Which was very likely true.) 

Down, down, down. Would the fall never 
come to an end? “I wonder how many miles 
I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I 
must be getting somewhere near the centre of 
the earth. Let me see: that would be four 
thousand miles down, I think ” ( for, you see, 
Alice had learnt several things of this sort in 
her lessons in the schoolroom, and though 


DOWN THE RABBIT— HOLE. 


7 


this was not a very good opportunity for show- 
ing off her knowledge, as there was no one to 
listen to her, still it was good practice to say 
it over) ; “ yes, that’s about the right distance 
— but then I wonder what Latitude or Longi- 
tude I’ve got to ? ” ( Alice had not the slightest 
idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, 
but she thought they were nice grand words 
to say.) 

Presently she began again. “ I wonder if I 
shall fall right through the earth! How funny 
it’ll seem to come out among the peopie tnat 
walk with their heads downwards! Tne an- 
tipathies, I think ” ( she was rather giaa 
there was no one listening this time, as it 
didn’t sound at all the right word) : “but I 
shall have to ask them what the name of the 
country is, you know. Please, ma’am, is this 
New Zealand or Australia?” (and she tried 
to courtesy as she spoke — fancy courtesying as 
you’re falling through the air! Do you think 
you could manage it ? ) “ And what an igno- 


8 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 

rant little girl she’ll think me for asking! 
No, it’ll never do to ask; perhaps I shall see it 
written up somewhere.” 

Down, down, down. There was nothing else 
to do, so Alice soon began talking again. “ Di- 
nah’ 11 miss me very much to-night, 1 should 
think! ” (Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they’ll 
remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. 
Dinah, my dear! I wish you were down here 
with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m 
afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s 
very like a mouse, you know. But do cats 
eat bats, I wonder? ” And here Alice began to 
get rather sleepy, and went on saying to her- 
self, in a dreamy sort of way, “Do cats eat 
bats ? Do cats eat bats ? ” and sometimes, “ Do 
bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t 
answer either question, it didn’t much matter 
which way she put it. She felt that she was 
dozing off, and had just begun to dream that 
she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, 
and was saying to her very earnestly, “Now, 


DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE. 


9 


Dinah, tell me the truth, did you ever eat a* 
bat?” when suddenly thump! thump! down she 
came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and 
the fall was over. 

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up 
on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but 
it was dark overhead ; before her was another 
long passage, and the White Rabbit was still 
in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a 
moment to be lost: away went Alice like the 
wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as 
it turned a corner, “ Oh, my ears and whiskers, 
how late it’s getting! ” She was close behind 
it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit 
was no longer to be seen: she found herself in 
a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of 
lamps hanging from the roof. 

There were doors all round the hall, but 
they were all locked, and when Alice had been 
all the way down one side and up the other, 
trying every door, she walked sadly down the 
middle, wondering how she was ever to get out 
again. 


10 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged 
table, all made of solid glass; there was noth- 
ing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice’s 



first idea was that this might belong to one of 
the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the 
locks were too large, or the key was too small, 
but at any rate it would not open any of them. 


DOWN THE RABBIT— HOLE. 


11 


However, on the second time round she came 
upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, 
and behind it was a little door about fifteen 
inches high: she tried the little golden key in 
the lock, and to her great delight it fitted ! 

Alice opened the door and found that it led 
into a small passage, not much larger than a 
rat-hole : she knelt down and looked along the 
passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. 
How she longed to get out of that dark hall, 
and wander about among those beds of bright 
flowers and those cool fountains. But she could 
not even get her head through the doorway. 
“And even if my head would go through, ” 
thought poor Alice, “ it would be of very little 
use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I 
could shut up like a telescope! I think I 
could, if I only knew how to begin.” For, 
you see, so many out-of-the-way things had 
happened lately, that Alice had begun to think 
that very few things indeed were really im- 
possible. 























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DOWN THE BABBIT-HOLE. 13 

had never forgotten that if you drink much 
from a bottle marked “poison,” it is almost cer- 
tain to disagree with you sooner or later. 

However, this bottle was not marked “poison,” 
so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it 
very nice ( it had, in fact, a sort of mixed 
flavor of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast 
turkey, toffy, and hot buttered toast), she very 
soon finished it off. 

* * * * * * * 

“What a curious feeling!” said Alice; “I 
must be shutting up like a telescope.” 

And so it was indeed : she was now only ten 
inches high, and her face brightened up at the 
thought that she was now the right size for 
going through the little door into that lovely 
garden. First, however, she waited for a few 
minutes to see if she was going to shrink any 
further: she felt a little nervous about this; 
“For it might end, you know,” said Alice to 
herself, “in my going out altogether, like a 
candle. I wonder what I should be like then ? ” 


14 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


And she tried to fancy what the flame of a can- 
dle looks like after the candle is blown out, for 
she could not remember ever having seen such 
a thing. 

After a while, finding that nothing more 
happened, she decided on going into the garden 
at once ; but, alas for poor Alice ! when she got 
to the door, she found she had forgotten the 
little golden key, and when she went back to 
the table for it, she found she could not possi- 
bly reach it. She could see quite plainly through 
the glass, and she tried her best to climb up 
one of the legs of the table, but it was too 
slippery, and when she had tired herself out 
with trying, the poor little thing sat down and 
cried. 

“Come, there’s no use in crying like that! ” 
said Alice to herself rather sharply ; “ I advise 
you to leave off this minute ! ” She generally 
gave herself very good advice ( though she 
very seldom followed it), and sometimes she 
scolded herself so severely as to bring tears 


DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE. 


15 


into her eyes, and once she remembered trying 
to box her own ears for having cheated herself 
in a game of croquet she was playing against 
herself ; for this curious child was very fond of 
pretending to be two people. “But it’s no use 
now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be 
two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of 
me left to make one respectable person ! ” 

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that 
was lying under the table : she opened it, and 
found in it a very small cake, on which the 
words “EAT ME” were beautifully marked in 
currants. “Well, I’ll eat it,” said Alice, “and 
if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the 
key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can 
creep under the door; so either way I’ll get 
into the garden, and I don’t care which 
happens! ” 

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to 
herself, “Which way? Which way?” holding 
her hand on the top of her head to feel which 
way it was growing, and she was quite sur- 


16 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


prised to find that she remained the same size : 
to be sure, this is what generally happens when 
one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into 
the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the- 
way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull 
and stupid for life to go on in the common way. 

So she set to work, and very soon finished 
off the cake. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE POOL OF TEARS. 


X 




CHAPTER II. 



THE POOL OF TEARS. 


“CURIOUSER 
and cnriouser ! ” 
cried Alice ( she 
was so much sur- 
prised, that for 
the moment she 
quite forgot how 
to speak good 
English ); “now 
I’m opening out 
like the largest 
telescope that ever 
was ! Good-by, 
feet!” (For when 
she looked down 
at her feet, they 
seemed to be al- 
most out of sight, 


19 


20 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


they were getting so far off.) “Oh, my poor 
little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes 
and stockings for you now, dears ? I’m sure I 
sha’n’t be able ! I shall be a great deal too far 
off to trouble myself about you: you must 
manage the best way you can ; — but I must 
be kind to them,” thought Alice, “or per- 
haps they won’t walk the way I want to go! 
Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of 
boots every Christmas.” 

And she went on planning to herself how 
she would manage it. “ They must go by the 
carrier,” she thought; “and how funny it’ll 
seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! And 
how odd the directions will look 

Alice's Right Foot , Esq., 

Hearthrug , 

near the Fender ; 

( with Alice's love.') 

Oh, dear, what nonsense I’m talking! ” 

Just at this moment her head struck against 


THE POOL OF TEARS. 


21 


the roof of the hall ; in fact, she was now rather 
more than nine feet high, and she at once took 
up the little golden key and hurried off to the 
garden door. 

Poor Alice ! It was as much as she could do, 
lying down on one side, to look through into 
the garden with one eye; but to get through 
was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and 
began to cry again. 

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said 
Alice, “a great girl like you” (she might well 
say this), “ to go on crying in this way ! Stop 
this moment, I tell you! ” But she went on all 
the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there 
was a large pool all round her, about four 
inches deep and reaching half down the hall. 

After a time she heard a little pattering of 
feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her 
eyes to see what was coming. It was the White 
Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a 
pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a 
large fan in the other: he came trotting along 


22 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 



in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he 
came, “Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! 
won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting! ” 
Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to 


THE POOL OF TEAKS. 


23 


ask help of any one ; so, when the Rabbit came 
near her, she began in a low timid voice, “ If 
yon please, sir — ” The Rabbit started vio- 
lently, dropped the white kid gloves and the 
fan, and skurried away into the darkness as’ 
hard as he could go. 

Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the 
hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all 
the time she went on talking: “Dear, dear! 
How queer everything is to-day! And yester- 
day things went on just as usual. I wonder if 
I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: 
was I the same when I got up this morning? 
I almost think I can remember feeling a little 
different. But if I’m not the same, the next 
question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, 
that's the great puzzle ! ” And she began think- 
ing over all the children she knew that were 
of the same age as herself, to see if she could 
have been changed for any of them. 

“I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, “for her 
hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine 


24 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 

doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I 
can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, 
and she, oh! she knows such a very little! 
Besides, she's she, andi’m I, and — oh, dear, 
how puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all 
the things I used to know. Let me see : four 
times five is twelve, and four times six is thir- 
teen, and four times seven is — oh, dear ! I shall 
never get to twenty at that rate! However, 
the Multiplication Table don’t signify: let’s 
try Geography. London is the capital of Paris, 
and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome — 
no, that's, all wrong, I’m certain! I must have 
been changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say ‘ How 
doth the little — ’ ” and she crossed her hands on 
her lap, as if she were saying lessons, and began 
to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and 
strange, and the words did not come the same 
as they used to do : — 

“ ‘ How doth the little crocodile 
Improve his shining tail, 

And pour the waters of the Nile 
On every golden scale 1 


THE POOL OF TEARS. 


25 


How cheerfully he seems to grin, 

How neatly spreads his claws, 

And welcomes little fishes in 
With gently smiling jaws! ’ 

“ I’m sure those are not the right words, ” said 
poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again 
as she went on, “ I must be Mabel after all, 
and shall have to go and live in that poky little 
house, and have next to no toys to play with, 
and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, 
I’ve made up my mind about it: if I’m Mabel, 
I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use their put- 
ting their heads down and saying, ‘Come up 
again, dear! ’ I shall only look up and say, 

4 Who am I, then? Tell me that first, and then, 
if I like being that person, I’ll come up; if 
not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else,’ 
— but, oh, dear!” cried Alice with a sudden 
burst of tears, “ I do wish they would put their 
heads down! I am so very tired of being all 
alone here! ” 

As she said this she looked down at her 


26 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


hands, and was surprised to see that she had 
put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves 
while she was talking. “ How can I have done 
that? ” she thought. “I must be growing small 
again.” She got up and went to the table to 
measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly 
as she could guess, she was now about two feet 
high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she 
soon found out that the cause of this was the 
fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, 
just in time to save herself from shrinking 
away altogether. 

“That was a narrow escape!” said Alice, a 
good deal frightened at the sudden change, but 
very glad to find herself still in existence; 
“and now for the garden!” and she ran with 
all speed back to the little door ; but, alas ! the 
little door was shut again, and the little golden 
key was tying on the glass table as before, “ and 
things are worse than ever,” thought the poor 
child, “ for I never was so small as this before, 
never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is! ” 


THE POOL OF TEARS. 


27 


As she said these words her foot slipped, 
and in another moment, splash! she was up to 
her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that 
she had somehow fallen into the sea, “ and in 
that case I can go back by railway,” she said 



to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside 
once in her life, and had come to the general 
conclusion, that wherever you go to on the 
English coast you find a number of bathing- 
machines in the sea, some children digging in 
the sand with wooden spades, then a row of 


28 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


lodging-houses, and behind them a railway 
station.) However, she soon made out that 
she was in the pool of tears which she had wept 
when she was nine feet high. 

“I wish I hadn’t cried so much! ” said Alice, 
as she swam about, trying to find her way out. 
“ I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by 
being drowned in my own tears! That will be 
a queer thing, to be sure! However, every- 
thing is queer to-day.” 

Just then she heard something splashing 
about in the pool a little way off, and she swam 
nearer to make out what it was : at first she 
thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, 
but then she remembered how small she was 
now, and she soon made out that it was only a 
mouse, that had slipped in like herself. 

“Would it be of any use, now,” thought 
Alice, “to speak to this mouse? Everything 
is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should 
think very likely it can talk; at any rate, there’s 
no harm in trying.” So she began, “O Mouse, 


THE POOL OF TEARS. 


29 


do you know the way out of this pool ? I am 
very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse ! ” 
( Alice thought this must be the right way of 
speaking to a mouse : she had never done such 
a thing before, but she remembered having seen 
in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “ A mouse — of 
a mouse — to a mouse — a mouse — O mouse ! ” ) 
The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, 
and seemed to her to wink with one of its little 
eyes, but it said nothing. 

“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” 
thought Alice; “I daresay it’s a French mouse, 
come over with William the Conqueror.” (For, 
with all her knowledge of history, Alice had 
no very clear notion how long ago anything had 
happened.) So she began again: “ Oil est ma 
chatte ?” which was the first sentence in her 
French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden 
leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all 
over with fright. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” 
cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt 
the poor animal’s feelings, “I quite forgot you 
didn’t like cats.” 


30 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 

“Not like cats! ” cried the Mouse in a shrill, 
passionate voice. “Would you like cats if you 
were me ? ” 

“Well, perhaps not, ’’said Alice in a soothing 
tone; “don’t be angry about it. And yet 1 



wish I could show you our cat Dinah : I think 
you’d take a fancy to cats if you could only see 
her. She is such a dear quiet thing,” Alice 
went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily 
about in the pool, “and she sits purring so 
nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing 
her face — and she is such a nice soft thing to 


THE POOL OF TEARS. 


31 


nurse — and she’s such a capital one for catch- 
ing mice — oh, I beg your pardon ! ” cried Alice 
again ; for this time the Mouse was bristling 
all over, and she felt certain it must be really 
offended. “We won’t talk about her any more 
if you’d rather not.” 

“We, indeed! ” cried the Mouse, who was 
trembling down to the end of his tail. “As if 
I would talk on such a subject! Our family 
always hated cats — nasty, low, vulgar things! 
Don’t let me hear the name again! ” 

“I won’t, indeed!” said Alice, in a great 
hurry to change the subject of conversation. 
“ Are you — are you fond — of — of dogs ? ” 
The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on 
eagerly, “ There is such a nice little dog near 
our house I should like to show you! A little 
bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh! such 
long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things 
when you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg 
for its dinner, and all sorts of things, — I can’t 
remember half of them, — and it belongs to a 


32 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


farmer, you know, and he says it’s so useful, 
it’s worth a hundred pounds ! He says it kills 
all the rats and — oh, dear! ” cried Alice in a 
sorrowful tone, “I’m afraid I’ve offended it 
again!” For the Mouse was swimming away 
from her as hard as it could go, and making 
quite a commotion in the pool as it went. 

So she called softly after it, “Mouse, dear! 
Do come back again, and we won’t talk about 
cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them!” 
When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and 
swam slowly hack to her: its face was quite 
pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in 
a low, trembling voice, “ Let us get to the shore, 
and then I’ll tell you my history, and you’ll 
understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.” 

It was high time to go, for the pool was 
getting quite crowded with the birds and ani- 
mals that had fallen into it. There was a Duck 
and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several 
other curious creatures. Alice led the way, 
and the whole party swam to the shore. 


CHAPTER III. 


A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE . 













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CHAPTER III. 

A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE. 

They were indeed a queer-looking party that 
assembled on the bank — the birds with draggled 
feathers, the animals with their fur clinging 
close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and 
uncomfortable. 

The first question of course was, how to get 
dry again : they had a consultation about this, 
and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural 
35 


36 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with 
them, as if she had known them all her life. 
Indeed, she had quite a long argument with 
the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would 
only say, “ I am older than you, and must know 
better; ” and this Alice would not allow, with- 
out knowing how old it was, and as the Lory 
positively refused to tell its age, there was no 
more to be said. 

At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person 
of some authority among them, called out, “ Sit 
down, all of you, and listen to me! Til soon 
make you dry enough! ” They all sat down at 
once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the 
middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed 
on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad 
cold if she did not get dry very soon. 

“Ahem! ” said the Mouse with an important 
air, “are you all ready? This is the driest 
thing I know. Silence all round, if you please ! 
‘William the Conqueror, whose cause was fa- 
vored by the pope, was soon submitted to 


A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE. 37 


by the English, who wanted leaders, and had 
been of late much accustomed to usurpation 
and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls 
of Mercia and Northumbria ’ ”— 

“ Ugh ! ” said the Lory with a shiver. 

“ I beg your pardon ? ” said the Mouse, frown- 
ing, but very politely, “ did you speak ? ” 

“Not I! ” said the Lory hastily. 

“I thought you did,” said the Mouse. “I 
proceed. ‘Edwin and Morcar, the earls of 
Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him; and 
even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Can- 
terbury, found it advisable ’ ” — 

“Found what? ” said the Duck. 

“Found f£,” the Mouse replied rather crossly : 
“of course you know what ‘it’ means.” 

“ I know what ‘ it ’ means well enough when I 
find a thing,” said the Duck; “it’s generally a 
frog or a worm. The question is, what did the 
archbishop find?” 

The Mouse did not notice this question, but 
hurriedly went on, 4 4 4 — found it advisable to 


88 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and 
offer him the crown. William’s conduct at 
first was moderate. But the insolence of his 
Normans’ — How are you getting on now, my 
dear?” it continued, turning to Alice as it 
spoke. 

“As wet as ever,” said Alice in a melancholy 
tone: “it doesn’t seem to dry me at all.” 

“In that case,” said the Dodo solemnly, ris- 
ing to its feet, “I move that the meeting ad- 
journ, for the immediate adoption of more 
energetic remedies ” — 

“ Speak English ! ” said the Eaglet. “ I don’t 
know the meaning of half those long words, 
and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do 
either!” And the Eaglet bent down its head 
to hide a smile : some of the other birds tit- 
tered audibly. 

“What I was going to say,” said the Dodo 
in an offended tone, “ was, that the best thing 
to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.” 

“ What is a Caucus-race ? ” said Alice ; not 


A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE. 39 

that she much wanted to know, but the Dodo 
had paused as if it thought that somebody ought 
to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to 
say anything. 

“Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to 
explain it is to do it.” (And as you might 
like to try the thing yourself, some winter 
day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.) 

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort 
of circle (“the exact shape doesn’t matter,” 
it said ), and then all the party were placed 
along the course, here and there. There was 
no “One, two, three, and away,” but they 
began running when they liked, and left off 
when they liked, so that it was not easy to know 
when the race was over. However, when they 
had been running half an hour or so, and were 
quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out, 
“ The race is over ! ” and they all crowded round 
it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?” 

This question the Dodo could not answer 
without a great deal of thought, and it sat for 


40 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


a long time with one finger pressed upon its 
forehead ( the position in which you usually see 
Shakespeare, in the pictures of him ), while the 
rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, 
“ Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.” 

“ But who is to give the prizes?” quite a 
chorus of voices asked. 

“Why, she, of course,” said the Dodo, point- 
ing to Alice with one finger; and the whole 
party at once crowded round her, calling out in 
a confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!” 

Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair 
she put her hand into her pocket, and pulled 
out a box of comfits (luckily the salt water 
had not got into it), and handed them round 
as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece, all 
round. 

“But she must have a prize herself, you 
know,” said the Mouse. 

“Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. 
“What else have you got in your pocket?” he 
went on, turning to Alice. 


A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE. 41 


“Only a thimble,” said Alice sadly. 

“Hand it over here,” said the Dodo 
Then they all crowded round her once more, 



while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, 
saying, “ We beg your acceptance of this elegant 
thimble;” and, when it had finished this short 
speech, they all cheered. 


42 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, 
but they all looked so grave that she did not 
dare to laugh, and, as she could not think of 
anything to say, she simply bowed, and took 
the thimble, looking as solemn as she could. 

The next thing was to eat the comfits: this 
caused some noise and confusion, as the large 
birds complained that they could not taste 
theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be 
patted on the back. However, it was over at 
last, and they sat down in a ring, and begged 
the Mouse to tell them something more. 

“You promised to tell me your history, you 
know, ” said Alice, “ and why it is you hate — C 
and D,” she added in a whisper, half afraid 
that it would be offended again. 

“ Mine is a long and a sad tale 1 ” said the 
Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. 

“ It is a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, look- 
ing down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; 
“but why do you call it sad?” And she kept 
on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speak- 




A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE. 43 


ing, so that her idea of the tale was something 


like this 







“ Fury said to 

a mouse, That 
he met 
in the 
house, 

‘ Let us 
both go 
to law : 

I will 
prosecute 
you. — 

Come, I’ll 
take no 
denial ; 

We must 

have a 
trial : 

For 

really 

this 

morning 

I’ve 

nothing 


death.’ 
to 

and you 
condemn 


to do.’ 

‘ Said the 
mouse to 
the cur, 

‘ Such a 
trial, 
dear sir, 

With no 
jury or 
judge, 
would be 
wasting 

our breath.’ 

‘ I’ll be 
judge 
I’ll be 
jury,’ 

Said 
cunning 
old Fury; 

‘ I’ll try 
the whole 

efliicP 


44 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“You are not attending! ” said the Mouse to 
Alice severely. “ What are you thinking of ? ” 
“ I beg your pardon,” said Alice very humbly : 
“you had got to the fifth bend, I think? ” 

“I had not!” cried the Mouse sharply and 
very angrily. 

“A knot! ” said Alice, always ready to make 
herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. 
“ Oh, do let me help to undo it! ” 

“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said the 
Mouse, getting up and walking away. “You 
insult me by talking such nonsense ! ” 

“I didn’t mean it!” pleaded poor Alice. 
“ But you are so easily offended, you know! ” 
The Mouse only growled in reply. 

“Please come back, and finish your story!” 
Alice called after it; and the others all joined 
in chorus, “Yes, please do!” but the Mouse 
only shook its head impatiently, and walked 
a little quicker. 

“What a pity it wouldn’t stay! ” sighed the 
Lory, as soon as it was quite out of sight ; and 


A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE. 45 

an old crab took the opportunity of saying to 
her daughter, “Ah, my dear! Let this be a 
lesson to you never to lose your temper! ” 
“Hold your tongue, Ma! ” said the young crab 
a little snappishly. “You’re enough to try 
the patience of an oyster! ” 

“ I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do ! ” 
said Alice aloud, addressing nobody in par- 
ticular. “She’d soon fetch it back! ” 

“And who is Dinah, if I might venture to 
ask the question ? ” said the Lory. 

Alice replied eagerly, for she was always 
ready to talk about her pet. “ Dinah’s our cat. 
And she’s such a capital one for catching mice, 
you can’t think! And oh, I wish you could 
see her after the birds ! Why, she’ll eat a little 
bird as soon as look at it! ” 

This speech caused a remarkable sensation 
among the party. Some of the birds hurried 
off at once : one old magpie began wrapping 
itself up very carefully, remarking, “I really 
must be getting home: the night-air doesn’t 


46 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


suit my throat ! ” and a canary called out in a 
trembling voice to its children, “ Come away, 
my dears ! It’s high time you were all in bed ! ” 
On various pretexts all moved off, and Alice 
was soon left alone. 

“I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah, ’’she said 
to herself in a melancholy tone. “Nobody 
seems to like her down here, and I’m sure 
she’s the best cat in the world ! Oh, my dear 
Dinah ! I wonder if I shall ever see you any 
more ? ” And here poor Alice began to cry 
again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited. 
In a little while, however, she again heard a 
little pattering of footsteps in the distance, and 
she looked up eagerly, half hoping that the 
Mouse had changed his mind, and was coming 
back to finish his story. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 



CHAPTER IV. 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly 
back again, and looking anxiously about as it 
went, as if it had lost something; and she 
heard it muttering to itself, “ The Duchess ! 
The Duchess ! Oh, my dear paws ! Oh, my 
fur and whiskers ! She’ll get me executed, as 
sure as ferrets are ferrets ! Where can I have 
dropped them, I wonder?” Alice guessed in a 
moment that it was looking for the fan and the 
pair of white kid gloves, and she very good- 
naturedly began hunting about for them, but 
they were nowhere to be seen — everything 
seemed to have changed since her swim in the 
49 


50 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


pool, and the great hall, with the glass 
table and the little door, had vanished com- 
pletely. 

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she 
went hunting about, and called out to her in 
an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what are 
you doing out here ? Run home this moment, 
and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan ! Quick, 
now ! ” And Alice was so much frightened that 
she ran off at once in the direction it pointed 
to, without trying to explain the mistake that it 
had made. 

“He took me for his housemaid,” she said to 
herself as she ran. “ How surprised he’ll be 
when he finds out who I am ! But I’d better 
take him his fan and gloves — that is, if I can 
find them.” As she said this, she came upon 
a neat little house, on the door of which was a 
bright brass plate with the name “ W. Rabbit,” 
engraved upon it. She went in without knock- 
ing, and hurried up-stairs, in great fear lest 
she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 51 

turned out of the house before she had found 
the fan and gloves. 

“ How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, 
“to be going messages for a rabbit ! I suppose 
Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next!” 
And she began fancying the sort of thing that 
would happen: “ ‘Miss Alice! Come here di- 
rectly, and get ready for your walk! ’ ‘Com- 
ing in a minute, nurse ! But I’ve got to watch 
this mousehole till Dinah comes back, and 
see that the mouse doesn’t get out.’ Only I 
don’t think,” Alice went on, “that they’d let 
Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering 
people about like that! ” 

By this time she had found her way into a 
tidy little room with a table in the window, 
and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or 
three pairs of tiny white kid gloves : she took 
up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and was 
just going to leave the room, when her eye fell 
upon a little bottle that stood near the looking- 
glass. There was no label this time with the 


52 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


words “DRINK ME,” but nevertheless she 
uncorked it and put it to her lips. “I know 
something interesting is sure to happen,” she 
said to herself, “ whenever I eat or drink anjr- 
thing; so I’ll just see what this bottle does. I 
do hope it’ll make me grow large again, for 
really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little 
thing! ” 

It did so indeed, and much sooner than she 
had expected: before she had drunk half the 
bottle she found her head pressing against the 
ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck 
from being broken. She hastily put down the 
bottle, saying to herself, “ That’s quite enough 
— I hope I shan’t grow any more — As it is, I 
can’t get out at the door — I do wish I hadn’t 
drunk quite so much! ” 

Alas! It was too late to wish that. She 
went on growing and growing, and very soon 
had to kneel down on the floor: in another 
minute there was not even room for this, and 
she tried the effect of lying down, with one 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 53 

elbow against the door, and the other arm curled 
round her head. Still she went on growing, 
and, as a last resource, she put one arm out 
of the window, and one foot up the chimney, 



and said to herself, “Now I can do no more, 
whatever happens. What will become of me ? ” 
Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle 
had now had its full effect, and she grew no 
larger: still it was very uncomfortable, and, as 
there seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever 


54 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


getting out of the room again, no wonder she 
felt unhappy. 

“It was much pleasanter at home,” thought 
poor Alice, “when one wasn’t always growing 
larger and smaller, and being ordered about 
by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t 
gone down that rabbit-hole — and yet — and 
yet — it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of 
life! I do wonder what can have happened to 
me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fan- 
cied that kind of thing never happened, and 
now here I am in the middle of one! There 
ought to be a book written about me, that 
there ought! And when I grow up I’ll write 
one — but I’m grown up now,” she added in 
a sorrowful tone, “at least there’s no room to 
grow up any more here. 

“ But then,” thought Alice, “shall I never get 
any older than I am now? That’ll be a com- 
fort, one way — never to be an old woman — 
but then — always to have lessons to learn ! 
Oh, I shouldn’t like that! 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 55 


“ Oh, you foolish Alice ! ” she answered her- 
self. “How can you learn lessons in here? 
Why, there’s hardly room for you, and no room 
at all for any lesson-books ! ” 

And so she went on, taking first one side and 
then the other, and making quite a conversation 
of it altogether ; but after a few minutes she 
heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen. 

“Mary Ann! Mary Ann! ” said the voice, 
“fetch me my gloves this moment!” Then 
came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. 
Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look 
for her, and she trembled till she shook the 
house, quite forgetting that she was now about 
a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and 
had no reason to be afraid of it. 

Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, 
and tried to open it; but as the door opened 
inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard 
against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice 
heard it say to itself, “Then I’ll go round and 
get in at the window.” 


56 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ That you won’t! ” thought Alice, and, after 
waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit 
just under the window, she suddenly spread 

out her hand, 
and made & 
snatch in the 
air. She did 
not get hold 
of anything, 
but she heard 
a little shriek 
and a fall, and 
a crash of 
broken glass, 
from which 
she concluded 
that it was 
just possible it had fallen into a cucumber- 
frame, or something of the sort. 

Next came an angry voice, — the Rabbit’s, — 
“Pat! Pat! Where are you?” And then a 
voice she had never heard before, “Sure then 
I’m here! Digging for apples, yer honor! ” 



THE BABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 57 


“Digging for apples, indeed! ” said the Rab- 
bit angrily. “ Here ! Come and help me out 
of this ! ” (Sounds of more broken glass.) 

“Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the 
window? ” 

“Sure, it’s an arm, yer honor!” (He pro- 
nounced it “arrum.” ) 

“ An arm, you goose ! Who ever saw one 
that size? Why, it fills the whole window !” 

“ Sure, it does, yer honor ; but it’s an arm for 
all that.” 

“Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate. 
Go and take it away! ” 

There was a long silence after this, and Alice 
could only hear whispers now and then, such as 
“ Sure, I don’t like it, yer honor, at all, at all ! ” 
— “ Do as I tell you, you coward ! ” and at last 
she spread out her hand again and made another 
snatch in the air. This time there were two 
little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. 
“What a number of cucumber-frames there 
must be!” thought Alice. “I wonder what 


58 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


they’ll do next ! As for pulling me out of the 
window, I only wish they could ! I’m sure I 
don’t want to stay in here any longer ! ” 

She waited for some time without hearing 
anything more. At last came a rumbling 
of little cart-wheels, and the sound of a good 
many voices all talking together: she made out 
the words, “Where’s the other ladder? — Why, 
I hadn’t to bring but one: Bill’s got the other 
— Bill! fetch it here, lad! — Here, put ’em up 
at this corner — No, tie ’em together first — 
they don’t reach half high enough yet — Oh! 
they’ll do well enough; don’t be particular — 
Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope — Will the 
roof bear? — Mind that loose slate — Oh, it’s 
coming down ! Heads below ! ” (A loud crash.) 
“Now, who did that? — It was Bill, I fancy — 
Who’s to go down the chimney? — Nay, I 
sha’n’t You do it ! — That I won’t then ! — 
Bill’s got to go down — Here, Bill ! the master 
says you’ve got to go down the chimney ! ” 
“Oh, so Bill’s got to come down the chim- 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 59 


ney, has he?” said 
Alice to herself. 
“Why, they seem to 
put everything upon 
Bill! I would’n’t be 
in Bill’s place for a 
good deal : this fire- 
place is narrow, to be 
sure, but I think I can 
kick a little ! ” 

She drew her foot 
as far down the chim- 
ney as she could, and 
waited till she heard 
a little animal (she 
couldn’t guess of what 
sort it was) scratch- 
ing and scrambling 
about in the chimney 
close above her ; then, 
saying to herself, 
“This is Bill,” she 



60 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 


gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what 
would happen next. 

The first thing she heard was a general 
chorus of, “There goes Bill ! ” then the Rabbit’s 
voice alone, “Catch him, you by the hedge!” 
then silence, and then another confusion of 
voices — “Hold up his head — Brandy now — 
Don’t choke him ! — How was it*, old fellow ? 
What happened to you? Tell us all about it ! ” 

Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice 
(“That’s Bill,” thought Alice), “Well, I 
hardly know — No more, thank’ye, I’m better 
now — hut I’m a deal too flustered to tell you 
— all I know is, something comes at me like a 
Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky- 
rocket ! ” 

“So you did, old fellow! ” said the others. 

“We must burn the house down!” said the 
Rabbit’s voice, and Alice called out as loud as 
she could, “If you do, I’ll set Dinah at you ! ” 

There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice 
thought to herself, “ I wonder what they will 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 61 


do next ! If they had any sense they’d take 
the roof off.” After a minute or two they began 
moving about again, and Alice heard the 
Rabbit say, “A barrowful will do, to begin 
with.” 

“ A barrowful of what ? ” thought Alice; but 
she had not long to doubt, for the next moment 
a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at 
the window, and some of them hit her in the 
face. “I’ll put a stop to this,” she said to 
herself, and shouted out, “You’d better not 
do that again ! ” which produced another dead 
silence. 

Alice noticed with some surprise that the 
pebbles were all turning into little cakes as 
they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came 
into her head. “If I eat one of these cakes,” 
she thought, “ it’s sure to make some change in 
my size ; and as it can’t possibly make me larger, 
it must make me smaller, I suppose.” 

So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was 
delighted to find that she began shrinking di- 


62 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


rectly. As soon as she was small enough to 
get through the door, she ran out of the house, 
and found quite a crowd of little animals and 
birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, 
Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two 
guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out 
of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the 
moment she appeared, but she ran off as hard as 
she could, and soon found herself safe in a 
thick wood. 

“ The first thing I’ve got to do,” said Alice 
to herself, as she wandered about in the w r ood, 
“ is to grow to my right size again ; and the 
second thing is to find my way into that lovely 
garden. I think that will be the best plan.” 

It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and 
very neatly and simply arranged; the only 
difficulty was, that she had not the smallest 
idea how to set about it; and while she was 
peering about anxiously among the trees, a 
little sharp bark just over her head made her 
look up in a great hurry. An enormous puppy 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 63 


was looking down at her with large round eyes, 
and feebly stretching out one paw, trying to 
touch her. “Poor little thing ! ” said Alice in 
a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle 
to it, but she was terribly frightened all the 
time at the thought that it might be hungry, 
in which case it would be very likely to eat 
her up in spite of all her coaxing. 

Hardly knowing what she did, she picked 
up a little bit of stick, and held it out to the 
puppy ; whereupon the puppy jumped into the 
air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, 
and rushed at the stick, and made believe to 
worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great 
thistle, to keep herself from being run over; 
and, the moment she appeared on the other 
side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, 
and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get 
hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very 
like having a game of play with a cart-horse, 
and expecting every moment to be trampled 
under its feet, ran round the thistle again; 


64 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


then the puppy began a series of short charges 
at the stick, running a very little way forwards 
each time, and a long way back, and barking 
hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat down a 
good way off, panting with its tongue hanging 
out of its mouth and its great eyes half shut. 

This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for 
making her escape, so she set off at once, and 
ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, 
and till the puppy’s bark sounded quite faint 
in the distance. 

“And yet what a dear little puppy it was ! ” 
said Alice as she leant against a buttercup to 
rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the 
leaves ; “ I should have liked teaching it tricks 
very much if — if I’d only been the right size 
to do it ! Oh, dear ! I’d nearly forgotten that 
I’ve got to grow up again! Let me see — how 
is it to be managed ? I suppose I ought to eat 
or drink something or other; but the great 
question is, what? ” 

The great question certainly was, what? 



“ She picked up a little bit of stick and held it out to the 

H 


puppy 





































>- 











: * 
• V,- 


















+ * * . 


♦ 






* 


























































" Ik ^ 










































THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 65 


Alice looked all round her at the flowers and 
the blades of grass, but she could not see any- 
thing that looked like the right thing to eat 
or drink under the circumstances. There was 
a large mushroom growing near her, about the 
same height as herself, and when she had 
looked under it, and on both sides of it, and be- 
hind it, it occurred to her that she might as 
well look and see what was on the top of it. 

She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped 
over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes 
immediately met those of a large blue cater- 
pillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms 
folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and 
taking not the smallest notice of her or of any- 
thing else. 









t 













V 












CHAPTER V. 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 


% 





CHAPTER V, 

ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each 
other for some time in silence : at last the Cat- 
erpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and 
addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. 

69 


70 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 


“ Who are you ? ” said the Caterpillar. 

This was not an encouraging opening for a 
conversation. Alice repied, rather shyly, “I 
— I hardly know, sir, just at present — at least 
I know who I was when I got up this morning, 
but I think I must have been changed several 
times since then/’ 

“What do you mean by that?” said the Cat- 
erpillar sternly. “ Explain yourself ! ” 

“ I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,” 
said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.” 

“ I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar. 

“ I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” 
Alice replied very politely, “for I can’t un- 
derstand it myself to begin with; and be- 
ing so many different sizes in a day is very 
confusing.” 

“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar. 

“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet, ” 
said Alice ; “ but when you have to turn into a 
chrysalis, — you will some day, you know, — 
and then after that into a butterfly, I should 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 71 

think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t 
you?” 

“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar. 

“Well, perhaps your feelings may be differ- 
ent,” said Alice; “all I know is, it would feel 
very queer to me. ’ ’ 

“You ! ” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. 
“Who are you ? ” 

Which brought them back again to the be- 
ginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little 
irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such very 
short remarks, and she drew herself up and 
said very gravely, “ I think you ought to tell 
me who you are, first.” 

“Why?” said the Caterpillar. 

Here was another puzzling question; and, as 
Alice could not think of any good reason, and 
as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very un- 
pleasant state of mind, she turned away. 

“ Come back ! ” the Caterpillar called after 
her. “I’ve something important to say! ” 

This sounded promising, certainly. Alice 
turned and came back again. 


72 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar. 

“Is that all?” said Alice, swallowing down 
her anger as well as she could. 

“No,” said the Caterpillar. 

Alice thought she might as well wait, as she 
had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it 
might tell her something worth hearing. For 
some minutes it puffed away without speaking ; 
but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah 
out of its mouth again, and said, “ So you think 
you’re changed; do you?” 

“I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice; “I can't 
remember things as I used — and I don’t keep 
the same size for ten minutes together ! ” 

“Can’t remember what things?” said the 
Caterpillar. 

“Well, I’ve tried to say 4 How doth the 
little busy bee,’ but it all came different! ” 
Alice replied in a very melancholy voice. 

“ Repeat 4 You are old , Father William , ’ ” 
said the Caterpillar. 

Alice folded her hands, and began : — 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 73 



“You are old, father William,” the young man said, 
“ And your hair has become very white ; 

And yet you incessantly stand on your head — 

Do you think, at your age, it is right?” 


“ In my youth,” father William replied to his son, 
“ I feared it might injure the brain ; 

But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none, 


Why, I do it again and again.” 


74 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 



“You are old,” said the youth, “ as I mentioned before, 
And have grown most uncommonly fat ; 

Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door — 

Pray, what is the reason of that ? ” 


“ In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his gray locks, 
“ I kept all my limbs very supple 
By the use of this ointment — one shilling the box — 
Allow me to sell you a couple.” 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 


75 



“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too 
weak 

For anything tougher than suet ; 

Yet you finished the goose, with the hones and the beak : 
Pray, how did you manage to do it ? ” 

“ In my youth,” said his father, “ I took to the law, 

And argued each case with my wife ; 

And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw 


Has lasted the rest of my life.” 


76 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 



“You are old,” said the youth ; “ one would hardly sup- 
pose 

That your eye was as steady as ever ; 

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose 

What made you so awfully clever ? ” 


“ I have answered three questions, and that is enough,” 
Said his father ; “ don’t give yourself airs ! 

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff ? 

Be off, or I’ll kick you down-stairs ! ” 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 


77 


“That is not said right, ” said the Caterpillar. 

“Not quite right, I’m afraid,” said Alice 
timidly ; “ some of the words have got altered. ’ ’ 

“ It is wrong from beginning to end, ’ ’ said 
the Caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence 
for some minutes. 

The Caterpillar was the first to speak. 

“What size do you want to be? ” it asked. 

“Oh, I’m not particular as to size,” Alice 
hastily replied; “only one doesn’t like chan- 
ging so often, you know.” 

“ I don't know,” said the Caterpillar. 

Alice said nothing: she had never been so 
much contradicted in all her life before, and 
she felt that she was losing her temper. 

“Are you content now? ” said the Caterpillar. 

“Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, 
if you wouldn’t mind,” said Alice: “three 
inches is such a wretched height to be.” 

“It is a very good height indeed! ” said the 
Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it 
spoke (it was exactly three inches high). 


78 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ But I’m not used to it ! ” pleaded poor Alice 
in a piteous tone. And she thought to herself, 
“I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily 
offended! ” 

“You’ll get used to it in time,” said the 
Caterpillar; and it put the hookah into its 
mouth and began smoking again. 

This time Alice waited patiently until it 
chose to speak again. In a minute or two the 
Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, 
and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. 
Then it got down off the mushroom, and 
crawled away into the grass, merely remarking 
as it went, “ One side will make you grow taller, 
and the other side will make you grow shorter. ’ ’ 

“ One si de of what ? The other side of what ? ’ ’ 
thought Alice to herself. 

“Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar, 
just as if she had asked it aloud ; and in another 
moment it was out of sight. 

Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the 
mushroom for a minute, trying to make out 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 


79 


which were the two sides of it; and, as it was 
perfectly round, she found this a very difficult 
question. However, at last she stretched her 
arms round it as far as they would go, and 
broke off a bit of the edge with each hand. 

“ And now which is which ? ’ ’ she said to her- 
self, and nibbled a little of the right-hand bit 
to try the effect: the next moment she felt a 
violent blow underneath her chin; it had struck 
her foot ! 

She was a good deal frightened by this very 
sudden change, but she felt that there was no 
time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; 
so she set to work at once to eat some of the 
other bit. Her chin was pressed so closely 
against her foot, that there was hardly room to 
open her mouth ; but she did it at last, and 
managed to swallow a morsel of the left-hand 
bit. 

* * * * * * * 

“Come, my head’s free at last! ” said Alice 
in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm 


80 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


in another moment, when she found that her 
shoulders were nowhere to be found: all she 
could see, when she looked down, was an im- 
mense length of neck, which seemed to rise like 
a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far 
below her. 

“ What can all that green stuff be ? ” said 
Alice. “And where have my shoulders got to? 
And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can’t see 
you?” She was moving them about as she 
spoke, but no result seemed to follow, except a 
little shaking among the distant green leaves. 

As there seemed to be no chance of getting 
her hands up to her head, she tried to get her 
head down to them, and was delighted to find 
that her neck would bend about easily in any 
direction, like a serpent. She had just suc- 
ceeded in curving it down into a graceful zig- 
zag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, 
which she found to be nothing but the tops of 
the trees under which she had been wandering, 
when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 


81 


hurry; a large pigeon had flown into her face, 
and was beating her violently with its wings. 

“Serpent! ” screamed the Pigeon. 

“ I’m not aserpent! ” said Alice indignantly. 
44 Let me alone ! ” 

“Serpent, I say again ! ” repeated the Pigeon, 
but in a more Subdued tone, and added with a 
kind of sob, “I’ve tried every way, and nothing 
seems to suit them ! ” 

“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking 
about,” said Alice. 

“ I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried 
banks, and I’ve tried hedges,” the Pigeon went 
on, without attending to her; 44 but those ser- 
pents ! There’s no pleasing them ! ” 

Alice was more and more puzzled, but she 
thought there was no use in saying anything 
more till the Pigeon had finished. 

4 4 As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the 
eggs,” said the Pigeon, 44 but I must be on the 
lookout for serpents night and day ! Why, 
I haven’t had a wink of sleep these three 
weeks ! ” 


82 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,” said 
Alice, who was beginning to see its meaning. 

“And just as I’d taken the highest tree in 
the wood,” continued the Pigeon, raising its 
voice to a shriek, “and just as I was thinking 
I should be free of them at last, they must 
needs come wriggling down from the sky! 
Ugh! Serpent!” 

“But I’m not a serpent, I tell you! ” said 
Alice; “I’m a — I’m a ” — 

“Well! What are you?” said the Pigeon. 
“I can see you’re trying to invent something ! ” 
“I — I’m a little girl,” said Alice, rather 
doubtfully, as she remembered the number of 
changes she had gone through that day. 

“A likely story indeed ! ” said the Pigeon in 
a tone of the deepest contempt. “ I’ve seen a 
good many little girls in my time, but never 
one with such a neck as that ! No, no ! You’re 
a serpent; and there’s no use denying it. I 
suppose you’ll be telling me next that you 
never tasted an egg.” 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 


83 


“I have tasted eggs, certainly,” said Alice, 
who was a very truthful child ; “ but little girls 
eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you 
know. ’ ’ 

“I don’t believe it,” said the Pigeon; “but 
if they do, why then they’re a kind of serpent, 
that’s all I can say.” 

This was such a new idea to Alice, that she 
was quite silent for a minute or two, which 
gave the Pigeon the opportunity of adding, 
“You’re looking for eggs, I knoAv that well 
enough; and what does it matter to me 
whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?” 

“It matters a good deal to we,” said Alice 
hastily ; 44 but I’m not looking for eggs, as it 
happens; and if I was, I shouldn’t want yours: 
I don’t like them raw.” 

“Well, be off, then ! ” said the Pigeon in a 
sulky tone, as it settled down again into its 
nest. Alice crouched down among the trees 
as well as she could, for her neck kept getting 
entangled among the branches, and every now 


84 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


and then she had to stop and untwist it. After 
a while she remembered that she still held the 
piece of mushroom in her hands, and she set 
to work very carefully, nibbling first at one 
and then at the other, and growing sometimes 
taller and sometimes shorter, until she had suc- 
ceeded in bringing herself down to her usual 
height. 

It was so long since she had been anything 
near the right size, that it felt quite strange at 
first, hut she got used to it in a few minutes, 
and began talking to herself as usual. “Come, 
there’s half my plan done now ! How puzzling 
all these changes are ! I’m never sure what 
I’m going to be, from one minute to another! 
However, I’ve got back to my right size; the 
next thing is, to get into that beautiful garden 
— howz’s that to be done, I wonder?” As she 
said this, she came suddenly upon an open 
place, with a little house in it about four feet 
high. “Whoever lives there,” thought Alice, 
it’ll never do to come upon them this size; 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 


85 


why, I should frighten them out of their wits ! ” 
So she began nibbling at the right-hand bit 
again, and did not venture to go near the house 
till she had brought herself down to nine inches 
high. 











































































































































































CHAPTER VI. 


PIG AND PEPPER. 




CHAPTER VI. 


PIG AND PEPPER. 

For a minute or two she stood looking at 
the house, and wondering what to do next, 
when suddenly a footman in livery came run- 
ning out of the wood (she considered him to 
be a footman because he was in livery; other- 
wise, judging by his face only, she would have 
called him a fish), and rapped loudly at the 
door with his knuckles. It was opened by 
another footman in livery, with a round face 
and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen, 
Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled 
all over their heads. She felt very curious 


90 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


to know what it was all about, and crept a 
little way out of the wood to listen. 

The Fish-Footman began by producing from 



under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as 
himself, and this he handed over to the other, 
saying in a solemn tone, “ For the Duchess. 



PIG AND PEPPER. 


91 


An invitation from the Queen to play croquet.” 
The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same 
solemn tone, only changing the order of the 
words a little, “ From the Queen. An invi- 
tation for the Duchess to play croquet.” 

Then they both bowed low, and their curls 
got entangled together. 

Alice laughed so much at this that she had to 
run back into the wood for fear of their hear- 
ing her, and when she next peeped out the Fish- 
Footman was gone, and the other was sitting 
on the ground near the door, staring stupidly 
up into the sky. 

Alice went timidly up to the door, and 
knocked. 

“There’s no sort of use in knocking,” said 
the Footman, “ and that for two reasons. First, 
because I’m on the same side of the door as 
you are; secondly, because they’re making such 
a noise inside, no one could possibly hear } r ou.” 
And certainly there was a most extraordinary 
noise going on within — a constant howling 


92 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


and sneezing, and every now and then a great 
crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to 
pieces. 

“ Please, then,” said Alice, 44 how am I to 
get in? ” 

44 There might be some sense in /our knock- 
ing,” the Footman went on without attending 
to her, 44 if we had the door between us. For 
instance, if you were inside, you might knock, 
and I could let you out, you know.” He was 
looking up into the sky all the time he was 
speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly 
uncivil. “But perhaps he can’t help it,” she 
said to herself; 44 his eyes are so very nearly at 
the top of his head. But at any rate he might 
answer questions — How am I to get in ? ” she 
repeated aloud. 

44 I shall sit here,” the Footman remarked, 
44 till to-morrow ” — 

At this moment the door of the house opened, 
and a large plate came skimming out, straight 
at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, 


PIG AND PEPPER. 


93 


and broke to pieces against one of the trees be- 
hind him. 

“ — or next day, maybe,” the Footman con- 
tinued in the same tone, exactly as if nothing 
had happened. 

44 How am I to get in?” Alice asked again, 
in a louder tone. 

44 Are you to get in at all?” said the Foot- 
man. 44 That’s the first question, you know.” 

It was, no doubt; only Alice did not like to 
be told so. 4 4 It’s really dreadful,” she mut- 
tered to herself, 4 4 the way all the creatures 
argue ! It’s enough to drive one crazy! ” 

The Footman seemed to think this a good 
opportunity for repeating his remark, with 
variations. 44 I shall sit here,” he said, 4 4 on 
and off, for days and days.” 

“But what am I to do?” said Alice. 

“Anything you like,” said the Footman, and 
began whistling. 

“Oh, there’s no use in talking to him ! ” said 
Alice desperately: “he’s perfectly idiotic!” 
And she opened the door and went in. 


94 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


The door led right into a large kitchen, 
which was full of smoke from one end to the 
other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged 
stool in the middle, nursing a baby ; the cook 



was leaning over the fire, stirring a large cal- 
dron, which seemed to be full of soup. 

“There’s certainly too much pepper in that 
soup!” Alice said to herself, as well as she 
could, for sneezing. 


PIG AND PEPPER. 


95 


There was certainly too much of it in the 
air. Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally; 
and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howl- 
ing alternately, without a moment’s pause. 
The only two creatures in the kitchen that did 
not sneeze were the cook, and a large cat 
which was sitting on the hearth and grinning 
from ear to ear. 

“Please, would you tell me,” said Alice, a 
little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether 
it was good manners for her to speak first, 
“ why your cat grins like that ? ’ 

“It’s & Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, 
“ and that’s why. Pig ! ” 

She said the last word with such sudden vio- 
lence that Alice quite jumped ; but she saw in 
another moment that it was addressed to the 
baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and 
went on again : — 

“I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always 
grinned; in fact, I didn’t know that cats could 
grin. ’ ’ 


96 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 

“They all can,” said the Duchess; “and 
most of ’em do.” 

“I don’t know of any that do,” Alice said 
very politely, feeling quite pleased to have got 
into a conversation. 

“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; 
“and that’s a fact.” 

Alice did not at all like the tone of this re- 
mark, and thought it would be as well to in- 
troduce some other subject of conversation. 
While she was trying to fix on one, the cook 
took the caldron of soup off the fire, and at 
once set to work throwing everything within 
her reach at the Duchess and the baby — the 
fire-irons came first; then followed a shower 
of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duch- 
ess took no notice of them, even when they hit 
her ; and the baby was howling so much al- 
ready, that it was quite impossible to say 
whether the blows hurt it or not. 

“Oh, please mind what you’re doing! ” cried 
Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of 


PIG AND PEPPER. 


9T 


terror. “Oh, there goes his precious nose! ” as 
an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, 
and very nearly carried it off. 

“If everybody minded their own business,” 
said the Duchess in a hoarse growl, “ the world 
would go round a deal faster than it does.” 

“ Which would not be an advantage,” said 
Alice, who felt very glad to get an opportu- 
nity of showing off a little of her knowledge. 
“Just think what work it would make with the 
day and night! You see, the earth takes 
twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis ’ ’ — 

“ Talking of axes, ’ ’ said the Duchess, “ chop 
off her head! ” Alice glanced rather anxiously 
at the cook, to see if she meant to take the 
hint ; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, 
and seemed not to be listening, so she went on 
again, “Twenty-four hours, I think ; or is it 
twelve ? I ” — 

“ Oh, don’t bother me! ” said the Duchess ; “I 
never could abide figures.” And with that she 
began nursing her child again, singing a sort of 


98 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a vio- 
lent shake at the end of every line : — 

“ Speak roughly to your little boy, 

And beat him when he sneezes ; 

He only does it to annoy, 

Because he knows it teases.” 

Chorus. 

( in which the cook and the baby joined) : — 
“Wow! wow! wow!” 

While the Duchess sang the second verse of 
the song, she kept tossing the baby violently 
up and down, and the poor little thing howled 
so, that Alice could hardly hear the words : — 

“ I speak severely to my boy, 

I beat him when he sneezes ; 

For he can thoroughly enjoy 
The pepper when he pleases ! ” 

Chorus. 


“ Wow ! wow ! wow ! ’ 


PIG AND PEPPER. 


99 


“Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like! ” 
said the Duchess to Alice, flinging the baby 
at her as she spoke. “ I must go and get ready 
to play croquet with the Queen, ’ ’ and she hur- 
ried out of the room. The cook threw a frying- 
nan after her as she went, but it just missed her. 

Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, 
as it was a queer-shaped little creature, and 
held out its arms and legs in all directions, 
“just like a star-fish,” thought Alice. The 
poor little thing was snorting like a steam- 
engine when she caught it, and kept doubling 
itself up and straightening itself out again, 
so that altogether, for the first minute or two, 
it was as much as she could do to hold it. 

As soon as she had made out the proper way 
of nursing it (which was to twist it up into a 
sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its 
right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its un- 
doing itself), she carried it out into the open 
air. “If I don’t take this child away with 
me, ’ ’ thought Alice, “ they’re sure to kill it in 


100 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


a day or two : wouldn’t it be murder to leave it 
behind ? ’ ’ She said the last words out loud, 
and the little thing grunted in reply (it had 
left off sneezing by this time). “ Don’t grunt,” 
said Alice: “that’s not at all a proper way of 
expressing yourself. ” 

The baby grunted again, and Alice looked 
very anxiously into its face to see what was the 
matter with it. There could be no doubt that 
it had a very turn-up nose, much more like a 
snout than a real nose ; also its eyes were get- 
ting extremely small, for a baby: altogether 
Alice did not like the look of the thing at all, 
“ — but perhaps it was only sobbing, “she 
thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see 
if there were any tears. 

No, there were no tears. “If you’re going 
to turn into a pig, my dear,” said Alice seri- 
ously, “ I’ll have nothing more to do with you. 
Mind, now!” The poor little thing sobbed 
again (or grunted, it was impossible to say 
which), and they went on for some while in 
silence. 



“ The cat only grinned when it saw Alice. 1 ’ 

















‘ 

' 


















































































































i 




















































r 













[Page 101 ] 


PIG AND PEPPER. 


101 


Alice was just beginning to think to herself, 
“Now, what am I to do with this creature 
when I get it home? ” when it grunted again 
so violently that she looked down into its face 
in some alarm. This time there could be no 
mistake about it: it was neither more nor less 
than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite 
absurd for her to carry it any further. 

So she set the little creature down, and felt 
quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into 
the wood. “If it had grown up,” she said to 
herself, 44 it would have been a dreadfully ugly 
child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I 
think.” And she began thinking over other 
children she knew, who might do very well as 
pigs, and was just saying to herself, “If one 
only knew the right way to change them ” — 
when she was a little startled by seeing the 
Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few 
yards off. 

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. 
It looked goodnatured, she thought; still it had 


102 Alice's adventures in wonderland. 


very long claws and a great many teeth, so she 
felt it ought to be treated with respect. 

“Cheshire Puss,” she began rather timidly, 
as she did not at all know whether it would 
like the name; however, it only grinned a 
little wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” 
thought Alice, and she went on, “Would you 
tell me, please, which way I ought to walk 
from here ? ’ ’ 

“That depends a good deal on where you 
want to get to,” said the Cat. 

“I don’t much care where,” said Alice. 

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you 
walk,” said the Cat. 

“ — so long as I get somewhere, ’ ’ Alice added 
as an explanation. 

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, 
4 4 if you only walk long enough ! ’ ’ 

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so 
she tried another question. “ What sort of 
people live about here ? ” 

“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its 


PIG AND PEPPER. 


103 


right paw round, 44 lives a Hatter; and in that 
direction,” waving the other paw, 44 lives a 
March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re 
Loth mad.” 

44 But I don’t want to go among mad people, ” 
Alice remarked. 

44 Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: 
44 we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” 

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. 

44 You must be,” said the Cat, 44 or you 
wouldn’t have come here.” 

Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; 
however, she went on : 44 And how do you know 
that you’re mad? ” 

44 To begin with,” said the Cat, 44 a dog’s 
not mad. You grant that?” 

44 1 suppose so,” said Alice. 

44 Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see a 
dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail 
when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m 
pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. 
Therefore I’m mad.” 


104 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ I call it purring, not growling,” said Alice. 

“Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “Do 
you p ] ay croquet with the Queen to-day? ” 

“I should like it very much,” said Alice, 
“but I haven’t been invited yet.” 

“You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and 
vanished. 

Alice was not much surprised at this; she 
was getting so well used to queer things hap- 
pening. While she was still looking at the 
place where it had been, it suddenly appeared 
again. 

“By-the-by, what became of the baby?” 
said the Cat. “I’d nearly forgotten to ask.” 

“It turned into a pig,” Alice answered very 
quietly, just as if the Cat had come back in a 
natural way. 

“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and 
vanished again. 

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it 
again, but it did not appear, and after a minute 
or two she walked on in the direction in which 


PIG AND PEPPEP 


105 


the March Hare was said to live. I’ve seen 
hatters before,” she said to herself: “ the March 
Hare will be much the most interesting, and 
perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad — 
at least not so mad as it was in March.” As 
she said this, she looked up, and there was the 
Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree. 

“Did you say pig, or fig? ” said the Cat. 

“ I said pig, ” replied Alice ; “ and I wish you 
wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so sud- 
denly: you make one quite giddy.” 

“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it 
vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end 
of the tail, and ending with the grin, which re- 
mained some time after the rest of it had gone. 

“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” 
thought Alice ; “but a grin without a cat! It’s 
the most curious thing I ever saw in all my 
life! ” 

She had not gone much farther before she 
came in sight of the house of the March Hare : 
she thought it must be the right house, because 


106 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


the chimneys were shaped like ears and the 
roof was thatched with fur. It was so large a 
house, that she did not like to go nearer till she 
had nibbled some more of the left-hand bit of 



mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet 
high: even then she walked up towards it 
rather timidly, saying to herself, “Suppose it 
should be raving mad after all! I almost wish 
I’d gone to see the Hatter instead! ” 


CHAPTER VII. 


A MAD TEA-PARTY. 



CHAPTER VII. 

A MAD TEA-PARTY. 

There was a table set out under a tree in 
front of the house, and the March Hare and the 
Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was 
sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other 
two were using it as a cushion, resting their 
elbows on it, and talking over its head. “Very 
uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought 
Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t 
mind.” 

The table was a large one, but the three were 
all crowded together at one corner of it. “No 
room! No room ! ” they cried out when they 
saw Alice coming. “ There’s plenty of room ! ” 
109 


110 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a 
large arm-chair at one end of the table. 

“Have some wine? ” the March Hare said in 
an encouraging tone. 

Alice looked all round the table, but there 
was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any 
wine,” she remarked. 

“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare. 

“ Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it, ” 
said Alice angrily. 

“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down 
without being invited,” said the March Hare. 

“I didn’t know it was your table,” said 
Alice ; “ it’s laid for a great many more than 
three.” 

“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. 
He had been looking at Alice for some time 
with great curiosity, and this was his first 
speech. 

“You should learn not to make personal re- 
marks,” Alice said with some severity: “it’s 
very rude.” 


A MAD TEA-PARTY. 


Ill 



The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on 
hearing this ; but all he said was, 44 Why is a 
raven like a writing-desk? ” 

44 Come, we shall have some fun now ! ” 
thought Alice. 44 I'm glad they’ve begun ask- 
ing riddles ■ — I believe I can guess that,” she 
added aloud. 

44 Do you mean that you think you can find 
out the answer to it? ” said the March Hare. 


“Exactly so,” said Alice. 


112 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“Then you should say what you mean,” the 
March Hare went on. 

“ I do, ” Alice hastily replied ; “ at least — at 
least I mean what I say — that’s the same thing, 
you know.” 

“Not the same thing a bit ! ” said the Hatter. 
“ Why, you might just as well say that 4 1 see' 
what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I 
see ! ’ ” 

“You might just as well say,” added the 
March Hare, 44 that ‘I like what I get’ is the 
same thing as 4 1 get what I like ’ ! ” 

“You might just as well say,” added the 
Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his 
sleep, 44 that 4 1 breathe when I sleep ’ is the 
same thing as 4 1 sleep when 1 breathe ’ ! ” 

“It is the same thing with you,” said the 
Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and 
the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice 
thought over all she could remember about 
ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much. 

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. 


A MAD TEA-PARTY. 


113 


“What day of the month is it?” he said, turn^, 
mg to Alice. He had taken his watch out of 
his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, 
shaking it every now and then, and holding it 
to his ear. 

Alice considered a little, and said, “The 
fourth.” 

“Two days wrong! ” sighed the Hatter. “I 
told you butter wouldn’t suit the works! ” he 
added, looking angrily at the March Hare. 

“It was the best butter,” the March Hare 
meekly replied. 

“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as 
well,” the Hatter grumbled: “you shouldn’t 
have put it in with the bread-knife.” 

The March Hare took the watch and looked 
at it gloomily : then he dipped it into his cup 
of tea, and looked at it again; but he could 
think of nothing better to say than his first 
remark, “It was the best butter, you know.” 

Alice had been looking over his shoulder with 
some curiosity. “What a funny watch! ” she 


114 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


remarked. “ It tells the day of the month, and 
doesn’t tell what o’clock it is! ” 

“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. 
“Does your watch tell you what year it is?” 

“Of course not,” Alice replied very readily; 
“but that’s because it stays the same year for 
such a long time together.” 

“Which is just the case with mine” said 
the Hatter. 

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s 
remark seemed to her to have no sort of meaning 
in it, and yet it was certainly English. “1 
don’t quite understand you,” she said, as po- 
litely as she could. 

“The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the 
Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea onto its 
nose. 

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, 
and said, without opening its eyes, “Of course, 
of course: just what I was going to remark 
myself.” 

“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the 
Hatter said, turning to Alice again. 


A MAD TEA-PARTY. 


115 


“No ; I give it up,” Alice replied: “ what’s 
the answer?” 

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the 
Hatter. 

“Nor I,” said the March Hare. 

Alice sighed wearily. “ I think you might 
do something better with the time,” she said, 
“ than wasting it in asking riddles that have no 
answers.” 

“ If you knew Time as well as I do,” said 
the Hatter, “ you wouldn’t talk about wasting 
it. It’s him . ” 

“ I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice. 

“ Of course you don’t! ” the Hatter said, 
tossing his head contemptuously. “I dare say 
you never even spoke to Time ! ” 

“ Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied; 
“ but I know I have to beat time when I learn 
music.” 

“Ah! that accounts lor it,” said the Hatter. 
“He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only 
kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost 


116 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


anything you liked with the clock. For in- 
stance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the 
morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d 
only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round 
goes the clock in a twinkling ! Half-past one, 
time for dinner ! ” 

(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said 
to itself in a whisper.) 

“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice 
thoughtfully ; “but then — I shouldn’t be 
hungry for it, you know. ’ ’ 

“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter; 
“ but you could keep it to half-past one as long 
as you liked.” 

“ Is that the way you manage ? ” Alice 
asked. 

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. 
“Not I,” he replied. “We quarrelled last 
March — just before he went mad, you know ” 
(pointing with his teaspoon at the March 
Hare) ; “it was at the great concert given by 
the Queen of Hearts, and I had 'to sing : — 


A MAD TEA-PARTY. 


117 



“ ‘ Twinkle, twinkle, little bat ! 

How I wonder what you’re at ! ’ 

You know the song perhaps?” 

“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice. 

“ It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, 
“ in this way : — 

“ ‘ Up above the world you fly, 

Like a tea-tray in the sky. 


Twinkle, twinkle ’ ” 


118 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began 
singing in its sleep, “ Twinkle , twinkle , twinkle , 
twinkle ’ ’ — and went on so long that they had 
to pinch it to make it stop. 

“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” 
said the Hatter, “when the Queen bawled out 
‘ He’s murdering the time ! Off with his 
head ! ”’ 

44 How dreadfully savage ! ” exclaimed Alice. 

44 And ever since that,” the Hatter went on 
in a mournful tone , 44 he won’t do a thing I ask ! 
It’s always six o’clock now.” 

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. 44 Is 
that the reason so many tea-things are put out 
here ? ” she asked. 

44 Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: 
44 it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash 
the things between whiles.” 

44 Then you keep moving round, I suppose? ” 
said Alice. 

44 Exactly so,” said the Hatter : 44 as the things 
get used up.” 


A MAD TEA-TARTY. 


119 


“ But when you come to the beginning 
again?” Alice ventured to ask. 

“ Suppose we change the subject,” the March 
Hate interrupted, yawning. “ I’m getting tired 
of this. I vote the young lady tells us a 
story.” 

“I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, 
rather alarmed at the proposal. 

“ Then the Dormouse shall ! ” they both cried. 
“Wake up, Dormouse !” And they pinched it 
on both sides at once. 

The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. “ I 
wasn’t asleep,” he said in a hoarse, feeble voice : 
“ I heard every word you fellows were saying.” 

“ Tell us a story ! ” said the March Hare. 

“ Yes, please do ! ” pleaded Alice. 

“ And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, 
“ or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.” 

“Once upon a time there were three little 
sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry ; 
“ and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie ; 
and they lived at the bottom of a well ” — 


120 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ What did they live on ? ” said Alice, who 
always took a great interest in questions of eat- 
ing and drinking. 

“ They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, 
after thinking a minute or two. 

“ They couldn’t have done that, you know,” 
Alice gently remarked : “ they’d have been ill.” 

“So they were,” said the Dormouse; “ very 
ill.” 

Alice tried a little to fancy to. herself what 
such an extraordinary way of living would be 
like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went 
on : “ But why did they live at the bottom of a 
well?” 

“ Take some more tea,” the March Hare said 
to Alice, very earnestly. 

“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an 
offended tone, “ so I can’t take more.” 

“ You mean, you can’t take less,” said the 
Hatter : “ it’s very easy to take more than 
nothing.” 

“Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice. 


A MAD TEA-PARTY. 


121 


“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the 
Hatter asked triumphantly. 

Alice did not quite know what to say to this : 
so she helped herself to some tea and bread and 
butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and 
repeated her question. “ Why did they live at 
the bottom of a well?” 

The Dormouse again took a minute or two 
to think about it, and then said, “ It was a 
treacle-well.” 

“ There’s no such thing ! ” Alice was begin- 
ning very angrily, but the Hatter and the 
March Hare went “ Sh ! sh ! ” and the Dormouse 
sulkily remarked, “ If you can’t be civil, you’d 
better finish the story for yourself.” 

“No, please go on ! ” Alice said fery humbly: 
“ I won’t interrupt you again. I dare say there 
may be one.” 

“One, indeed!” said the Dormouse indig- 
nantly. However, he consented to go on. 
“ And so these three little sisters — they were 
learning to draw, you know ” — 


122 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“What did they draw?” said Alice, quite 
forgetting her promise. 

“ Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without con- 
sidering at all this time. 

“ I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hatter : 
“let’s all move one place on.” 

He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse 
followed him: the March Hare moved into the 
Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly 
took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter 
was the only one who got any advantage from 
the change : and Alice was a good deal worse 
off than before, as the March Hare had just 
upset the milk-jug into his plate. 

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse 
again, so she began very cautiously : “ But I 
don’t understand. Where did they draw the 
treacle from ? ” 

“You can draw water out of a water-well,” 
said the Hatter ; “ so I should think you could 
draw treacle out of a treacle-well — eh, stupid? ” 

“ But they were in the well,” Alice said to 


A MAD TEA-PARTY. 


123 


the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last 
remark. 

“ Of course they were,” said the Dormouse, 
— “well in.” 

This answer so confused poor Alice, that she 
let the Dormouse go on for some time without 
interrupting it. 

“ They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse 
went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it 
was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all 
manner of things — everything that begins with 
an M ” ■ — 

“ Why with an M? ” said Alice. 

“ Why not? ” said the March Hare. 

Alice was silent. 

The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this 
time, and was going off into a doze, but, on 
being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again 
with a little shriek, and went on: “ — that 
begins with an M, such as mousetraps, and the 
moon, and memory, and muchness — you know 
you say things are 4 much of a muchness ’ — did 


124 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


yon ever see such a thing as a drawing of a 
muchness? ” 

“ Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very 
much confused, “ I don’t think ” — 

“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter. 



This piece of rudeness was more than Alice 
could bear: she got up in great disgust, and 
walked off : the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, 
and neither of the others took the least notice 
of her going, though she looked back once or 
twice, half hoping that they would call after 


A MAD TEA-PARTY. 125 

her : the last time she saw them, they were 
trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot. 

“ At any rate I’ll never go there again ! ” said 
Alice as she picked her way through the wood. 

“ It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in 
all my life ! 

Just as she said this, she noticed that one 
of the trees had a door leading right into it. 
“ That’s very curious ! ” she thought. “ But 
everything’s curious to-day. I think I may as 
well go in at once.” And in she went. 

Once more she found herself in the long hall, 
and close to the little glass table. “ Now, I’ll 
manage better this time,” she said to herself, 
and began by taking the little golden key, and 
unlocking the door that led into the garden. 
Then she set to work nibbling at the mushroom 
(she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till 
she was about a foot high : then she walked 
down the little passage : and then — she found 
herself at last in the beautiful garden, among 
the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains. 






CHAPTER VIII. 


THE QUEEN'S CROQUET-GROUND. 


/ 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND. 

A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of 
the garden : the roses growing on it were white, 
but there were three gardeners at it, busily 
painting them red. Alice thought this a very 
curious thing, and she went nearer to watch 
them, and just as she came up to them she 
heard one of them say, “Look out now, Five ! 
Don’t go splashing paint over me like that ! ” 

“ I couldn’t help it,” said Five in a sulky 
tone ; “ Seven jogged my elbow.” 

On which Seven looked up and said, “That’s 
right, Five ! Always lay the blame on others ! ” 
“ You'd better not talk ! ” said Five. “ I 


129 


130 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 

heard the Queen say only yesterday you de- 
served to be beheaded ! ” 

“What for ?” said the one who had spoken 
first. 

“ That’s none 
of your busi- 
ness, Two!” 
said Seven. 

“Yes, it is his 
business ! ” said 
Five, “and I’ll 
tell him — it 
was for bring- 
ing the cook 
tulip roots in- 
stead of onions.” 

Seven flung 
down his brush, and had just begun, “ Well, 
of all the unjust things” — when his eye 
chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood 
watching them, and he checked himself sud-‘ 
denly : the others looked round also, and all 
of them bowed low. 



the queen’s croquet-ground. 131 

“Would you tell me, please,” said Alice, 
a little timidly, 44 why you are painting those 
roses ? ” 

Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at 
Two. Two began, in a Tow voice, 44 Why, the 
fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have 
been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one 
in by mistake, and if the Queen was to find it 
out, we should all have our heads cut off, you 
know. So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, 
afore she comes, to ” — At this moment Five, 
who had been anxiously looking across the gar- 
den, called out, “The Queen! The Queen! ’’and 
the three gardeners instantly threw themselves 
flat upon their faces. There was a sound of 
many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager 
to see the Queen. 

First came ten soldiers carrying clubs ; these 
were all shaped like the three gardeners, oblong 
and flat, with their hands and feet at the cor- 
ners ; next the ten courtiers ; these were orna- 
mented all over with diamonds, and walked two 


132 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


and two, as the soldiers did. After these came 
the royal children ; there were ten of them, 
and the little dears came jumping merrily along, 
hand in hand, in couples : they were all orna- 
mented with hearts. Next came the guests, 
mostly Kings and Queens, and among them 
Alice recognized the White Rabbit : it was talk- 
ing in a hurried, nervous manner, smiling at 
everything that was said, and went by without 
noticing her. Then followed the Knave of 
Hearts, carrying the King’s crown on a crimson 
velvet cushion ; and, last of all this grand pro- 
cession, came the king and queen of 
HEARTS. 

Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought 
not to lie down on her face like the three gar- 
deners, but she could not remember ever having 
heard of such a rule at processions ; “ and be- 
sides, what would be the use of a procession,” 
she thought, “ if people had all to lie down on 
their faces, so that the}^ couldn’t see it?” So 
she stood where she was, and waited. 


the queen’s croquet-ground. 133 

When the procession came opposite to Alice, 
they all stopped and looked at her, and the 
Queen said severely, “ Who is this ? ” She said 
it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and 
smiled in reply. 

“ Idiot ! ” said the Queen, tossing her head 
impatiently ; and, turning to Alice, she went 
on, “ What’s your name, child ? ” 

“ My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,” 
said Alice very politely ; but she added to her- 
self, “ Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after 
all. I needn’t he afraid of them ! ” 

“And who are these?" said the Queen, point- 
ing to the three gardeners who were lying 
round the rose-tree ; for you see, as they were 
lying on their faces, and the pattern on their 
backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she 
could not tell whether they were gardeners, or 
soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own 
children. 

“ How should / know? ” said Alice surprised 
at her own courage. “ It’s no business of mine" 


134 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, 
after glaring at her for a moment like a wild 
beast, began screaming, “ Off with her head ! 
Off”— 

“Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and 
decidedly, and the Queen was silent. 

The King laid his hand upon her arm, and 
timidly said, “ Consider, my dear : she is only a 
child ! ” 

The Queen turned angrily away from him, 
and said to the Knave, “ Turn them over! ” 

The Knave did so, very carefully, with one 
foot. 

“Get up!” said the Queen in a shrill, loud 
voice, and the three gardeners instantly jumped 
up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, 
the royal children, and everybody else. 

“Leave off that!” screamed the Queen. 
“ You make me giddy.” And then, turning to 
the rose-tree, she went on, “What have you 
been doing here ? ” 

“ May it please your Majesty,” said Two, in 



“Off with her head I Off — ” 


jP*. / .. - 



the queen’s croquet-ground. 135 

a very humble tone, going down on one knee as 
he spoke, “we were trying ” — 

“ I see ! ” said the Queen, who had mean- 
while been examining the roses. “ Off with 
their heads ! ” and the procession moved on, 
three of the soldiers remaining behind to exe- 
cute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice 
for protection. 

“You sha’n’t he beheaded!” said Alice, and 
she put them into a large flower-pot that stood 
near. The three soldiers wandered about for 
a minute or two, looking for them, and then 
quietly marched off after the others. 

“ Are their heads off? ” shouted the Queen. 

“ Their heads are gone, if it please your 
Majesty ! ” the soldiers shouted in reply. 

“ That’s right ! ” shouted the Queen. “ Can 
you play croquet ? ” 

The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, 
as the question was evidently meant for her. 

“ Yes ! ” shouted Alice. 

“ Come on then ! ” roared the Queen, and 


136 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


Alice joined the procession, wondering very 
much what would happen next. 

“It’s — it’s a very fine day!” said a timid 
voice at her side. She was walking by the White 
Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her 
face. 

“ Very,” said Alice. “ Where’s the Duchess ? ” 

“ Hush ! Hush ! ” said the Rabbit in a low, 
hurried tone. He looked anxiously over his 
shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself 
upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and 
whispered, “She’s under sentence of execution.” 

“ What for ? ” said Alice. 

“ Did you say 4 What a pity ! ’ ? ” the Rabbit 
asked. 

“No, I didn’t,” said Alice: “I don’t think 
it’s at all a pity. I said, 4 What for ? ’ ” 

“ She boxed the Queen’s ears ” — the Rabbit 
began. Alice gave a little scream of laughter. 
“ Oh, hush ! ” the Rabbit whispered in a fright- 
ened tone. “ The Queen will hear you ! You 
see, she came rather late, and the Queen said ” — 


the queen’s croquet-ground. 137 

“ Get to your places ! ” shouted the Queen in 
a voice of thunder, and people began running 
about in all directions, tumbling up against 
each other ; however, they got settled down in 
a minute or two, and the game began. 

Alice thought 
she had never seen 
such a curious cro- 
quet-ground in her 
life : it was all 
ridges and fur- 
rows; the croquet- 
balls were live 
hedgehogs, and the 
mallets live flamin- 
goes, and the sol- 
diers had to double 
themselves up and 
stand on their hands and feet, to make the 
arches. 

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was 
in managing her flamingo : she succeeded in get- 



138 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


ting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, 
under her arm, with its legs hanging down ; but 
generally, just as she had got its neck nicely 
straightened out, and was going to give the 
hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist 
itself round and look up into her face with 
such a puzzled expression that she could not 
help bursting out laughing : and when she had 
got its head down, and was going to begin 
again, it was very provoking to find that the 
hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the 
act of crawling away : besides all this, there was 
generally a ridge or a furrow in the way wher- 
ever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, 
as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting 
up and walking off to other parts of the ground, 
Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a 
very difficult game indeed. 

The players all played at once, without wait- 
ing for turns, quarrelling all the while, and 
fighting for the hedgehogs ; and in a very short 
time the Queen was in a furious passion, and 


THE queen’s croquet-ground. 139 

went stamping about, and shouting, “ Off with 
his head ! ” or, “ Off with her head ! ” about once 
in a minute. 

Alice began to feel very uneasy ; to be sure, 
she had not as yet had any dispute with the 
Queen, but she knew that it might happen any 
minute ; “ and then,” thought she, “ what would 
become of me? They’re dreadfully fond of 
beheading people here : the great wonder is, 
that there’s any one left alive ! ” 

She was looking about for some way of escape, 
and wondering whether she could get away 
without being seen, when she noticed a curious 
appearance in the air ; it puzzled her very much 
at first, but after watching it a minute or two 
she made it out to be a grin, and she said to her- 
self, “ It’s the Cheshire Cat ; now I shall have 
somebody to talk to.” 

“How are you getting on?” said the Cat, 
as soon as there was mouth enough for it to 
speak with. 

Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then 


140 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


nodded. “It’s no use speaking to it,” she 
thought, “ till its ears have come, or at least 
one of them.” In another minute the whole 
head appeared, and then Alice put down her 
flamingo, and began an account of the game, 
feeling very glad she had some one to listen to 
her. The Cat seemed to think that there was 
enough of it now in sight, and no more of it 
appeared. 

“ I don’t think they play at all fairly,” Alice 
began, in rather a complaining tone, “ and they 
all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear one’s-self 
speak — and they don’t seem to have any rules 
in particular ; at least, if there are, nobody 
attends to them — and you’ve no idea how con- 
fusing it is all the things being alive ; for in- 
stance, there’s the arch I’ve got to go through 
next, walking about at the other end of the 
ground — and I should have croqueted the 
Queen’s hedgehog just now, only it ran away 
when it saw mine coming ! ” 

“ How do you like the Queen ? ” said the Cat 
in a low voice. 


the queen’s croquet-ground. 141 

“Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so ex- 
tremely” — Just then she noticed that the 
Queen was close behind her, listening ; so she 
went on,“ — likely to win, that it’s hardly worth 
while finishing the game.” 

The Queen smiled and passed on. 

“ Who are you talking to ? ” said the King, 
coming up to Alice, and looking at the Cat’s 
head with great curiosity. 

“ It’s a friend of mine — a Cheshire Cat,” said 
Alice; “allow me to introduce it.” 

“ I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the 
King : “ however, it may kiss my hand if it 
likes.” 

“ I’d rather not,” the Cat remarked. 

“Don’t be impertinent,” said the King, “and 
don’t look at me like that ! ” He got behind 
Alice as he spoke. 

“ A cat may look at a king,” said Alice. 
“ I’ve read that in some book, but I don’t re- 
member where.” 

“ Well, it must be removed,” said the King 


142 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 

very decidedly, and he called to the Queen, who 
was passing at the moment, “ My dear ! I wish 
you would have this cat removed ! ” 

The Queen had only one way of settling all 
difficulties, great or small. “ Off with his 
head ? ” she said, without even looking round. 

“ I’ll fetch the executioner myself,” said the 
King eagerly, and he hurried off. 

Alice thought she might as well go back and 
see how the game was going on, as she heard 
the Queen’s voice in the distance, screaming 
with passion. She had already heard her sen- 
tence three of the players to be executed for 
having missed their turns, and she did not like 
the look of things at all, as the game was in 
such confusion that she never knew whether it 
was her turn or not. So she went off in search 
of her hedgehog. 

The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with 
another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an 
excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them 
with the other ; the only difficulty was, that 


the queen’s croquet-ground. 143 

her flamingo was gone across to the other side 
of the garden, where Alice could see it trying 
in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree. 

By the time she had caught the flamingo 
and brought it back, the fight was over, and 
both the hedgehogs were out of sight ; “ But it 
doesn’t matter much,” thought Alice, “ as all the 
arches are gone from this side of the ground.” 
So she tucked it away under her arm, that it 
might not escape again, and went back to have 
a little more conversation with her friend. 

When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she 
was surprised to find quite a large crowd col- 
lected round it: there was a dispute going on 
between the executioner, the King, and the 
Queen, who were all talking at once, while all 
the rest were quite silent, and looked very 
uncomfortable. 

The moment Alice appeared, she was ap- 
pealed to by all three to settle the question, 
and they repeated their arguments to her, 
though, as they all spoke at once, she found 


144 Alice’s adventures in wonderland 



it very hard to make out exactly what they 
said. 

The executioner’s argument was, that you 
couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body* 
to cut it off from : that he had never had to 



the queen’s croquet-ground. 145 

do such a thing before, and he wasn’t going to 
begin at his time of life. 

The King’s argument was, that anything that 
had a head could he beheaded, and that you 
weren’t to talk nonsense. 

The Queen’s argument was, that if some- 
thing wasn’t done about it in less than no time, 
she’d have everybody executed, all round. (It 
was this last remark that had made the whole 
party look so grave and anxious.) 

Alice could think of nothing else to say but, 
“It belongs to the Duchess: you’d better ask 
her about it.” 

“ She’s in prison,” the Queen said to the exe- 
cutioner : “ fetch her here.” And the execu- 
tioner went off like an arrow. 

The Cat’s head began fading away the mo- 
ment he was gone, and, by the time he had 
come back with the Duchess, it had entirely 
disappeared : so the King and the executioner 
ran wildly up and down looking for it, while 
the rest of the party went back to the game. 

















































t 

































CHAPTER IX. 


THE MOCK TURTLE'S STORY. 















' 






CHAPTER IX. 

THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY. 

“ You can’t think how glad I am to see you 
again, you dear old thing ! ” said the Duchess, 
as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice’s, 
and they walked off together. 

Alice was very glad to find her in such a 
pleasant temper, and thought to herself that 
perhaps it was only the pepper that had made 
her so savage when they met in the kitchen. 
“ When Tm a Duchess,” she said to herself 
(not in a very hopeful tone though), “ I won’t 
have any pepper in my kitchen at all. Soup 
does very well without — Maybe it’s always 
149 


150 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


pepper that makes people hot-tempered,” she 
went on, very much pleased at having found 
out a new kind of rule, “and vinegar that 
makes them sour — and camomile that makes 
them bitter — and — and barley-sugar and such 
things that make children sweet-tempered. 1 
only wish people knew that: then they wouldn’t 
be so stingy about it, you know ” — 

She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this 
time, and was a little startled when she heard 
her voice close to her ear. “ You’re thinking 
about something, my dear, and that makes you 
forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what 
the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in 
a bit.” 

“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to 
remark. 

“ Tut, tut, child ! ” said the Duchess. “ Every- 
thing’s got a moral, if only you can find it.” 
And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice’s 
side as she spoke. 

Alice did not much like her keeping so close 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY. 


151 



to her : first, because the Duchess was very 
ugly, and secondly, because she was exactly the 
right height to 
rest her chin on 
Alice’s shoulder, 
and it was an 
uncomfortably 
sharp chin. 

However, she 
did not like to 
be rude, so she 
bore it as well 
as she could. 

“ The game’s 
going on rather 
better now,” she 
said, by way of keeping up the conversation a 
little. 

“ ’Tis so,” said the Duchess : “ and the moral 
of that is — ‘ Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love, that makes 
the world go round ! ’” 

“ Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “ that 


152 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


it’s done by everybody minding their own 
business ! ” 

44 Ah, well! It means much the same thing,” 
said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin 
into Alice’s shoulder as she added, “ and the 
moral of that is — 4 Take care of the sense, and 
the sounds will take care of themselves.’ ” 

44 How fond she is of finding morals in 
things ! ” Alice thought to herself. 

44 I daresay you’re wondering why I don’t put 
my arm round your waist,” said the Duchess 
after a pause : 44 the reason is, that I’m doubtful 
about the temper of your flamingo. Shall I 
try the experiment ? ” 

“He might bite,” Alice cautiously replied, 
not feeling at all anxious to have the experi- 
ment tried. 

u Very true,” said the Duchess: “flamingoes 
and mustard both bite. And the moral of that 
is — 4 Birds of a feather flock together.’ ” 

44 Only mustard isn’t a bird,” Alice remarked. 

44 Right, as usual,” said the Duchess : 44 what 
a clear way you have of putting things ! ” 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY. 153 

“ It’s a mineral, I think” said Alice. 

“Of course it is,” said the Duchess, who 
seemed ready to agree to every thing that Alice 
said ; “ there’s a large mustard-mine near here. 
And the moral of that is — ‘ The more there is 
of mine, the less there is of yours.’ ” 

“ Oh, I know ! ” exclaimed Alice, who had 
not attended to this last remark, “ it’s a vege- 
table. It doesn’t look like one, but it is.” 

“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess, 
“and the moral of that is — 4 Be what you 
would seem to be ; ’ or, if you’d like it put 
more simply — ‘Never imagine yourself not 
to be otherwise than what it might appear to 
others that what you were or might have been 
was not otherwise than what you had been 
would have appeared to them to be other- 
wise.’ ” 

“I think I should understand that better,” 
Alice said very politely, “ if I had it written 
down ; but I can’t quite follow it as you say 
it.” 


154 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“That’s nothing to what I could say if I 
chose,” the Duchess replied in a pleased tone. 

“ Pray don’t trouble yourself to say it any 
longer than that,” said Alice. 

“ Oh, don’t talk about trouble ! ” said the 
Duchess. “ I make you a present of every- 
thing I’ve said as yet.” 

“ A cheap sort of present ! ” thought Alice. 
“I’m glad they don’t give birthday presents 
like that ! ” But she did not venture to say it 
out loud. 

“ Thinking again ? ” the Duchess asked, with 
another dig of her sharp little chin. 

“ I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply, 
for she was beginning to feel a little worried. 

“ Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, 
“ as pigs have to fly : and the m ” — 

But here, to Alice’s great surprise, the 
Duchess’s voice died away, even in the middle 
of her favorite word “ moral,” and the arm 
that was linked into hers began to tremble. 
Alice looked up, and there stood the Queen in 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY. 155 

front of them, with her arms folded, frowning 
like a thunderstorm. 

“A fine day, your Majesty!” the Duchess 
began in a low, weak voice. 

“ Now, I give you fair warning,” shouted the 
Queen, stamping on the ground as she spoke ; 
“ either you or your head must be off, and that 
in about half no time ! Take your choice ! ” 

The Duchess took her choice, and was gone 
in a moment. 

“Let’s go on with the game,” the Queen 
said to Alice, and Alice was too much frightened 
to say a word, but slowly followed her back to 
the croquet-ground. 

The other guests had taken advantage of 
the Queen’s absence, and were resting in the 
shade ; however the moment they saw her, they 
hurried back to the game, the Queen merely 
remarking that a moment’s delay would cost 
them their lives. 

All the time they were playing the Queen 
never left off quarrelling with the other players, 


156 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


and shouting, 44 Off with his head ! ” or 44 Off 
with her head ! ” Those whom she sentenced 
were taken into custody by the soldiers, who 
of course had to leave off being arches to do 
this, so that by the end of half an hour or so 
there were no arches left, and all the players, 
except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in 
custody, and under sentence of execution. 

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, 
and said to Alice, 44 Have you seen the Mock 
Turtle yet? ” 

44 No,” said Alice. 44 1 don’t even know what 
a Mock Turtle is.” 

44 It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made 
from,” said the Queen. 

44 1 never saw one, or heard of one,” said Alice. 

44 Come on, then,” said the Queen, 44 and he 
shall tell you his history.” 

As they walked off together, Alice heard the 
King say in a low voice, to the company gener- 
ally, 44 You are all pardoned.” 44 Come, that's a 
good thing ! ” she said to herself, for she had 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY. 157 

felt quite unhappy at the number of executions 
the Queen had ordered. 

They were very soon upon a Gryphon, lying 
fast asleep in the sun. (If you don’t know what 
a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) “ Up, lazy 
thing ! ” said the Queen, “ and take this young 



lady to see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his 
history. I must go back and see after some 
executions I have ordered ; ” and she walked off, 
leaving Alice alone with the Gryphon. Alice 
did not quite like the look of the creature, but 
on the whole she thought it would be quite as 


158 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


safe to stay with it as to go after that savage 
Queen ; so she waited. 

The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: 
then it watched the Queen till she was out of 
sight : then it chuckled. “ What fun ! ” said 
the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice. 

44 What is the fun ? ” said Alice. 

“ Why, sAe,”said the Gryphon. “It’s all her 
fancy, that : they never executes nobody, you 
know. Come on ! ” 

“ Everybody says, 4 come on ! ’ here,” thought 
Alice, as she went slowly after it : “I never was 
so ordered about before in all my life, never ! ” 

They had not gone far before they saw the 
Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and 
lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they 
came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as 
if his heart would break. She pitied him 
deeply. “What is his sorrow?” she asked the 
Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very 
nearly in the same words as before , 44 It’s all his 
fancy, that : he hasn’t got no sorrow, you know. 
Come on ! ” 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY. 159 

So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who 
looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but 
said nothing. 

“ This here young lady,” said the Gryphon, 
“ she wants for to know your history, she do.” 

“ I’ll tell it her,” said the Mock Turtle in a 
deep, hollow tone : “ sit down both of you, and 
don’t speak a word till I’ve finished.” 

So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some 
minutes. Alice thought to herself, “ I don’t see 
how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin.” 
But she waited patiently. 

“ Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with 
a deep sigh, “ I was a real Turtle.” 

These words were followed by a very long 
silence, broken only by an occasional exclama- 
tion of “ Hjckrrh ! ” from the Gryphon, and the 
constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. 
Alice was very nearly getting up and saying, 
“Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,” 
but she could not help thinking there must be 
more to come, so she sat still and said nothing. 


160 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle 
went on at last, more calmly, though still sob- 



bing a little now and then, “ we went to school 
in the sea. The master was an old Turtle — 
we used to call him Tortoise ” — 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY. 


161 


“ Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t 
one ? ” Alice asked. 

“We called him Tortoise because he taught 
us,” said the Mock Turtle angrily ; “ really you 
are very dull ! ” 

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for 
asking such a simple question,” added the 
Gryphon ; and then they both sat silent and 
looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink 
into the earth. At last the Gryphon said to 
the Mock Turtle, “ Drive on, old fellow! Don’t 
be all day about it ! ” and he went on in these 
words : — 

“ Yes, we went to school in the sea, though 
you mayn’t believe it ” — 

“ I never said I didn’t ! ” interrupted Alice. 

“You did,” said the Mock Turtle. 

“ Hold your tongue ! ” added the Gryphon, 
before Alice could speak again. The Mock 
Turtle went on : — 

“We had the best of educations — in fact, we 
went to school every day ” — 


162 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ I've been to day-school too,” said Alice ; 
“you needn’t be so proud as all that.” 

“ With extras ? ” asked the Mock Turtle a 
little anxiously. 

“ Yes,” said Alice, “ we learned French and 
music.” 

“ And washing?” said the Mock Turtle. 

“ Certainly not ! ” said Alice indignantly. 

“ Ah ! Then yours wasn’t a really good 
school,” said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great 
relief. “ Now at ours they had at the end of 
the bill, 4 French, music, and washing — extra.’ ” 

“ You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said 
Alice ; 44 living at the bottom of the sea.” 

44 1 couldn’t afford to learn it,” said the Mock 
Turtle with a sigh. 44 1 only took the regular 
course.” 

“ What was that?” inquired Alice. 

“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin 
with,” the Mock Turtle replied; 44 and then the 
different branches of Arithmetic, — Ambition, 
Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.” 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY. 


163 


“ I never heard of ‘ Uglification,’ ” Alice ven- 
tured to say. “What is it ? ” 

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in sur- 
prise. “ Never heard of uglifying ! ” it ex- 
claimed. “You know what to beautify is, I 
suppose ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Alice doubtfully : “ it means — 
to — make — anything — prettier.” 

“ Well, then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you 
don’t know what to uglify is, you are a 
simpleton.” 

Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any 
more questions about it, so she turned to the 
Mock Turtle, and said, “ What else had you to 
learn ? ” 

“ Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle 
replied, counting off the subjects on his flap- 
pers, — “ Mystery, ancient and modern, with 
Seaography : then Drawling — the Drawling 
master was an old conger-eel, that used to come 
once a week : he taught us Drawling, Stretch- 
ing, and Fainting in Coils.” 


164 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ What was that like ? ” said Alice. 

“Well, I can’t show it you, myself,” the 
Mock Turtle said : “ I’m too stiff. And the 
Gryphon never learnt it.” 

“ Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon : “ I went 
to the Classical master, though. He was an old 
crab, he was.” 

“ I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said 
with a sigh : “ he taught Laughing and Grief, 
they used to say.” 

“ So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, 
sighing in his turn, and both creatures hid their 
faces in their paws. 

“ And how many hours a day did you do les- 
sons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the 
# subject. 

“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock 
Turtle : “ nine the next, and so on.” 

“ What a curious plan ! ” exclaimed Alice. 

“ That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the 
Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from 
day to day.” 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY. 


165 


This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she 
thought it over a little before she made her next 
remark. “ Then the eleventh day must have 
been a holiday ? ” 

“ Of course it was,” said the Mock Turtle. 

“ And how did you manage on the twelfth ? ” 
Alice went on eagerly. 

“ That’s enough about lessons,” the Gryphon 
interrupted in a very decided tone : “ tell her 
something about the games now.” 






























, 

M .. 




CHAPTER X. 


THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE. 



CHAPTER X. 


THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE. 

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew 
the back of one flapper across his eyes. He 
looked at Alice and tried to speak, but for a 
minute or two sobs choked his voice. “Same 
as if he had a bone in his throat,” said the 
Gryphon, and it set to work shaking him and 
punching him in the back. At last the Mock 
Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears run- 
ning down his cheeks, he went on again: — 

“ You may not have lived much under the 
sea ” (“ I haven’t,” said Alice), “ and per- 

haps you were never even introduced to a lob- 
ster” (Alice began to say “I once tasted — ” 


170 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


but checked herself hastily, and said, “ No, 
never”), “so you can have no idea what a 
delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is ! ” 

“No, indeed,” said Alice. “What sort of a 
dance is it ? ” 

“Why,” said the Gryphon, “you first form 
into a line along the seashore ” — 

“ Two lines ! ” cried the Mock Turtle. “ Seals, 
turtles, salmon, and so on; then, when you’ve 
cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way” — 

“ That generally takes some time,” interrupted 
the Gryphon. 

“ — you advance twice ” — 

“ Each with a lobster as a partner ! ” cried the 
Gryphon. 

“ Of course,” the Mock Turtle said: “advance 
twice, set to partners ” — 

“ — change lobsters, and retire in same order,” 
continued the Gryphon. 

“ Then, you know,” the Mock Turtle went 
on, “ you throw the ” — 

“ The lobsters ! ” shouted the Gryphon, with 
a bound into the air. 


THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE. 


171 


“ — as far out to sea as you can ” — 

“ Swim after them ! ” screamed the Gryphon. 

“ Turn a somersault in the sea ! ” cried the 
Mock Turtle, capering wildly about. 

“ Change lobsters again ! ” yelled the Gryphon 
at the top of his voice. 

“ Back to land again, and — that’s all the first 
figure,” said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping 
his voice, and the two creatures, who had been 
jumping about like mad things all this time, 
sat down again very sadly and quietly, and 
looked at Alice. 

“ It must be a very pretty dance,” said Alice 
timidly. 

“Would you like to see a little of it?” said 
the Mock Turtle. 

“Very much indeed,” said Alice. 

“ Come, let’s try the first figure ! ” said the 
Mock Turtle to the Gryphon. “We can do it 
without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing? ” 

“ Oh, you sing,” said the Gryphon. “ I’ve for- 
gotten the words.” 


172 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 

So they began solemnly dancing round and 
round Alice, every now and then treading on 



her toes when they passed too close, and waving 
their fore-paws to mark the time, while the 
Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly and sadly: — 


THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE. 


173 


“ ‘ Will you walk a little faster ! ” said a whiting to a snail, 

“ There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on 
my tail. 

See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance ! 

They are waiting on the shingle — will you come and join 
the dance ? 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join 
the dance ? 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join 
the dance ? 

“ ‘You can really have no notion how delightful it will be 

When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out 
to sea ! ” , 

But the snail replied, “ Too far, too far ! ” and gave a look 
askance — 

Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join 
the dance. 

Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not 
join the dance. 

Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not 
join the dance. 

“ ‘ What matters it how far we go ? ” his scaly friend 
replied, 

“ There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. 


174 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


The further off from England the nearer is to France ; 

Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the 
dance. 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join 
the dance ? 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join 
the dance ? ! ” 

“Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to 
watch,” said Alice, feeling very glad that it was 
over at last ; “and I do so like that curious song 
about the whiting ! ” 

“ Oh, as to the whiting,” said the Mock Tur- 
tle, “they — you’ve seen them, of course? ” 

“Yes,” said Alice ; “ I’ve often seen them at 
dinn ” — she checked herself hastily. 

“ I don’t know where Dinn may be,” said the 
Mock Turtle, “but if you’ve seen them so often, 
of course you know what they’re like.” 

“I believe so,” Alice replied thoughtfully. 
“ They have their tails in their mouths ; — and 
they’re all over crumbs.” 

“ You’re wrong about the crumbs,” said the 


THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE. 


175 


Mock Turtle: “crumbs would all wash off in 
the sea. But they have their tails in their 
mouths ; and the reason is ” — here the Mock 
Turtle yawned and shut his eyes. “Tell her 
about the reason, and all that,” he said to the 
Gryphon. 

“The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “that 
they would go with the lobsters to the dance. 
So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to 
fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in 
their mouths. So they couldn’t get them out 
again. That’s all.” 

“ Thank you,” said Alice, “ it’s very interest- 
ing. I never knew so much about a whiting 
before.” 

“ I can tell you more than that, if you like,” 
said the Gryphon. “Do you know why it’s 
called a whiting ? ” 

“ I never thought about it,” said Alice. 
“ Why?” 

“ It does the boots and shoes,” the Gryphon 
replied very solemnly ! 


176 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “Does the 
boots and shoes ! ” she repeated in a wondering 
tone. 

“Why, what are your shoes done with?” 
said the Gryphon. “ I mean, what makes them 
so shiny ? ” 

Alice looked down at them, and considered a 
little before she gave her answer. “They’re 
done with blacking, I believe.” 

“ Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gry- 
phon went on in a deep voice, “ are done with 
whiting. Now you know.” 

“ And what are they made of ? ” Alice asked 
in a tone of great curiosity. 

“ Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon 
replied rather impatiently : “ any shrimp could 
have told you that.” 

“ If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose 
thoughts were still running on the song, “ I’d 
have said to the porpoise , 4 Keep back, please : 
we don’t want you with us ! ’ ” 


THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE. 


177 


“ They were obliged to have him with them,” 
the Mock Turtle said: “no wise fish would go 
anywhere without a porpoise.” 

“ Wouldn’t it really? ” said Alice in a tone of 
great surprise. 

44 Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle : 
44 why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was 
going a journey, I should say, 4 With what por- 
poise ? ’ ” 

44 Don’t you mean 4 purpose ? ’ ” said Alice. 

44 1 mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle re- 
plied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon 
added, 44 Come, let’s hear some of your adven- 
tures.” 

44 1 could tell you my adventures — begin- 
ning from this morning,” said Alice a little 
timidly ; 44 but it’s no use going back to 
yesterday, because I was a different person 
then.” 

44 Explain all that,” said the Mock Turtle. 

44 No, no ! the adventures first,” said the Gry- 


178 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


phon in an impatient tone : “ explanations take 
such a dreadful time.” 

So Alice began telling them her adventures 
from the time when she first saw the White 
Rabbit : she was a little nervous about it just 
at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one 
on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths 
so very wide ; but she gained courage as she 
went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet 
till she got to the part about her repeating 
“ You are old , Father William ,” to the Caterpil- 
lar, and the words all coming different, and then 
the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said, 
“ That’s very curious.” 

“ It’s all about as curious as it can be,” said 
the Gryphon. 

“ It all came different ! ” the Mock Turtle 
repeated thoughtfully. “ I should like to hear 
her try and repeat something now. Tell her to 
begin.” He looked at the Gryphon as if he 
thought it had some kind of authority over 
Alice. 


THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE. 


179 


“Stand up and repeat 4 'Tis the voice of the 
sluggard,'” said the Gryphon. 

“ How the creatures 
order one about, and 
make one repeat les- 
sons!” thought Alice. 

44 1 might just as well 
be at school at once.” 

However, she got up, 
and began to repeat 
it ; but her head was 
so full of the Lob- 
ster Quadrille, that 
she hardly knew what 
she was saying, and 
the words came very queer indeed : — 

“ ’Tis the voice of the lobster ; I heard him declare, 

4 You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.’ 

As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose 
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.” 

44 That’s different from what I used to say 
when I was a child,” said the Gryphon. 



180 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ Well, I never heard it before,” said the Mock 
Turtle ; “ but it sounds uncommon nonsense.” 

Alice said nothing : she had sat down again, 
with her face in her hands, wondering if any- 
thing would ever happen in a natural wa}^ 
again. 

“ I should like to have it explained,” said the 
Mock Turtle. 

“She can’t explain it,” said the Gryphon 
hastily. “ Go on with the next verse.” 

“ But about his toes? ” the Mock Turtle per- 
sisted. “ How could he turn them out with his 
nose, you know ? ” 

“It’s the first position in dancing,” Alice 
said ; but she was dreadfully puzzled by the 
whole thing, and longed to change the subject. 

“ Go on with the next verse,” the Gryphon 
repeated impatiently : “ it begins 4 1 passed by 
his garden .’ ” 

Alice did not dare to disobey, though she 
felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went 
on in a trembling voice : — 


THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE. 


181 


“ I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, 
How the owl and the oyster were sharing the pie ” — 


“ What is the use of repeating all that stuff,” 
the Mock Turtle interrupted, “if you don’t ex- 
plain it as you go on ? It’s by far the most con- 
fusing thing I ever heard ! ” 

“ Yes, I think you’d better leave off,” said 
the Gryphon, and Alice was only too glad to 
do so. 

“ Shall we try another figure of the Lobster 
Quadrille ? ” the Gryphon went on. “ Or would 
you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a 
song? ” 

“ Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle 
would be so kind,” Alice replied, so eagerly 
that the Gryphon said in a rather offended tone, 
“ Hm ! No accounting for tastes ! Sing her 
4 Turtle Soup,' will you, old fellow? ” 

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began 
in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing 
this : — 


182 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, 

' 

Waiting in a hot tureen ! 

Who for such dainties would not stoop ? 

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup ! 

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup ! 

Beau — ootiful Soo — oop ! 

Beau — ootiful Soo — oop ! 

Soo — oop of the e — e — evening, 

Beautiful, beautiful Soup ! 

“ Beautiful Soup ! Who cares for fish, 

Game, or any other dish ? 

Who would not give all else for two p 
ennyworth only of beautiful Soup ? 

Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup ? 

Beau — ootiful Soo — oop ! 

Beau — ootiful Soo — oop ! 

Soo — oop of the e — e — evening, 

Beautiful, beauti — ful soup ! ” 

“ Chorus again ! ” cried the Gryphon, and the 
Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when 
a cry of, “The trial’s beginning ! ” was heard in 
the distance. 

“ Come on ! ” cried the Gryphon, and, taking 


THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE. 


188 


Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without wait- 
ing for the end of the song. 

“ What trial is it ? ” Alice panted as she ran, 
but the Gryphon only answered, “ Come on ! ” 
and ran the faster, while more and more faintly 
came, carried on the breeze that followed them, 
the melancholy words : — 

“ Soo — oop of the e — e — evening, 

Beautiful, beautiful Soup I ” 

















































































' 































• * 




























































































CHAPTER XI. 



WHO STOLE THE TARTS ? 






CHAPTER XI. 

WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 

The King and Queen of Hearts were seated 
on their throne when they arrived, with a great 
crowd assembled about them, — all sorts of little 
birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of 
cards : the Knave was standing before them, 
in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard 
him ; and near the King was the White Rabbit, 
with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of 
parchment in the other. In the very middle 
of the court was a table, with a large dish of 
tarts upon it: they looked so good, that it 
made Alice quite hungry to look at them. “ I 
wish they’d get the trial done,” she thought, 
187 


188 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ and hand round the refreshments ! ” But there 
seemed to be no chance of this, so she began 
looking at everything about her, to pass away 
the time. 

Alice had never, been in a court of justice 
before, but she had read about them in books, 
and she was quite pleased to find that she knew 
the name of nearly everything there. “ That’s 
the judge,” she said to herself, “ because of his 
great wig.” 

The judge, by the way, was the King, and 
as he wore his crown over the wig (look at 
the illustration if you want to see how he did 
it), he did not look at all comfortable, and it 
was certainly not becoming. 

“And that’s the jury-box,” thought Alice, 
“ and those twelve creatures” (she was obliged 
to say “ creatures,” you see, because some of 
them were animals, and some were birds), “I 
suppose they are the jurors.” She said this 
last word two or three times over to herself, 
being rather proud of it ; for she thought, and 


WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 


189 


rightly too, that very few little girls of her age 
knew the meaning of it at all. However, “ jury- 
men ” would have done just as well. 

The twelve jurors were all writing very 
busily on slates. “ What are they doing ? ” 
Alice whispered to the Gryphon. “ They can’t 
have anything to put down yet, before the 
trial’s begun.” 

“They’re putting down their names,” the 
Gryphon whispered in reply, “ for fear they 
should forget them before the end of the trial.” 

u Stupid things ! ” Alice began in a loud, 
indignant voice, but she stopped herself hastily, 
for the White Rabbit cried out, “ Silence in the 
court ! ” and the King put on his spectacles and 
looked anxiously round, to make out who was 
talking. 

Alice could see, as well as if she were look- 
ing over their shoulders, that all the jurors were 
writing down “ stupid things ! ” on their slates, 
and she could even make out that one of them 
didn’t know how to spell “ stupid,” and that he 


190 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


had to ask his neighbor to tell him. “ A nice 
muddle their slates ’ll be in before the trial’s 
over ! ” thought Alice. 

One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. 
This, of course, Alice could not stand, and she 
went round the court and got behind him, and 
very soon found an opportunity of taking it 
away. She did it so quickly that the poor 
little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not 
make out at all what had become of it; so, 
after hunting all about for it, he was obliged 
to write with one finger for the rest of the day ; 
and this was of very little use, as it left no 
mark on the slate. 

“ Herald, read the accusation ! ” said the King. 

On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts 
on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parch- 
ment scroll, and read as follows : — 

“ The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, 

All on a summer day : 

The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, 

And took them quite away ! ” 



Tlie Court of Justice. 
























































WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 


191 


“Consider your verdict,” the King said to 
the jury. 

“ Not yet, not yet ! ” the Rabbit hastily in- 



“Call the first witness,” said the King; 


192 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


and the White Rabbit blew three blasts 
on the trumpet, and called out, “ First wit- 
ness ! ” 

The first witness was the Hatter. He came 
in with a teacup in one hand, and a piece of 
bread and butter in the other. “ I beg pardon 
your Majesty,” he began, u for bringing these 
in ; but I hadn’t quite finished my tea when I 
was sent for.” 

“ You ought to have finished,” said the King. 
“ When did you begin ? ” 

The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who 
had followed him into the court, arm-in-arm 
with the Dormouse. “Fourteenth of March, I 
think it was,” he said. 

u Fifteenth,” said the March Hare. 
u Sixteenth,” added the Dormouse. 

“Write that down,” the King said to the 
jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three 
dates on their slates, and then added them 
up, and reduced the answer to shillings and 
pence. 


WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 


193 


“ Take off your hat,” the King said to the 
Hatter. 

“ It isn’t mine,” said the Hatter. 

“ Stolen ! ” the King exclaimed, turning to 
the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of 
the fact. 

“ I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added as 
an explanation: “I’ve none of my own. I’m 
a hatter.” 

Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and 
began staring hard at the Hatter, who turned 
pale and fidgeted. 

“ Give your evidence,” said the King ; “ and 
don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on 
the spot.” 

This did not seem to encourage the wit- 
ness at all : he kept shifting from one foot 
to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, 
and in his confusion he bit a large piece 
out of his teacup'" instead of the bread and 
butter. 

Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious 


194 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until 
she made out what it was : she was beginning 
to grow larger again, and she thought at first 
she would get up and leave the court; but 
on second thoughts she decided to remain 
where she was as long as there was room for 
her. 

“I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so,” said the 
Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. “ I can 
hardly breathe.” 

“ I can’t help it,” said Alice very meekly : 

“ I’m growing.” 

“You’ve no right to grow here,” said the 
Dormouse. 

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Alice more boldly: 
“you know you’re growing too.” 

“ Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,” said 
the Dormouse : “ not in that ridiculous fashion.” 
And he got up very sulkily and crossed over to 
the other side of the court. 

All this time the Queen had never left off 
staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse « 


WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 


195 


crossed the court, she said to one of the officers 
of the court, “ Bring me the list of the singers 
in the last concert ! ” on which the wretched 
Hatter trembled so, 
that he shook both 
his shoes off. 

“ Give your evi- 
dence,” the King re- 
peated angrily, “or 
I’ll have you exe- 
cuted, whether you- 
’re nervous or not.” 

“ I’m a poor man, 
your Majesty,” the 
Hatter began in a 
trembling voice, 

“ and 1 hadn’t but just begun my tea, — not 
above a week or so, — and what with the bread 
and butter getting so thin — and the twinkling 
of the tea ” — 

“The twinkling of what?” said the King. 

“It began with the tea,” the Hatter replied. 



196 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ Of course twinkling begins with a T ! ” said 
the King sharply. “ Do you take me for a 
dunce ? Go on ! ” 

“I’m a poor man,” the Hatter went on, “ and 
most things twinkled after that — only the 
March Hare said — ” 

“ I didn’t ! ” the March Hare interrupted in 
a great hurry. 

“ You did ! ” said the Hatter. 

“ I deny it ! ” said the March Hare. 

“ He denies it,” said the King : “ leave out 
that part.” 

“ Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said” — the 
Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see 
if he would deny it too; but the Dormouse 
denied nothing, being fast asleep. 

“After that,” continued the Hatter, “I cut 
some more bread and butter ” — 

“ But what did the Dormouse say ? ” one of 
the jury asked. 

“ That I can’t remember,” said the Hatter. 

“You must remember,” remarked the King, 
“ or I’ll have you executed.” 


WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 


197 


The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and 
bread and butter, and went down on one knee. 
“ I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” he began. 

“ You’re a very poor speaker” said the King. 

Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was 
immediately suppressed by the officers of the 
court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will 
just explain to you how it was done. They had 
a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth 
with strings : into this they slipped the guinea- 
pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) 

“ I’m glad I’ve seen that done,” thought 
Alice. “ I’ve so often read in the newspapers, 
at the end of trials, 4 There was some attempt 
at applause, which was immediately suppressed 
by the officers of the court,’ and I never under- 
stood what it meant till now.” 

“ If that’s all you know about it, you may 
stand down,” continued the King. 

“ I can’t go no lower,” said the Hatter : 44 I’m 
on the floor, as it is.” 

44 Then you may sit down,” the King replied. 


198 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was 
suppressed. 

“ Come, that finishes the guinea-pigs ! ” 
thought Alice. “ Now we shall get on better.” 
“ I’d rather finish my tea,” said the Hatter, 



with an anxious look at the Queen, who was 
reading the list of singers. 

“ You may go,” said the King, and the Hatter 
hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to 
put his shoes on. 

“ And just take his head off outside,” the 
Queen added to one of the officers ; but the 


WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 


199 


Hatter was out of sight before the officer could 
get to the door. 

“ Call the next witness ! ” said the King. 

The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. 
She carried the pepper-box in her hand ; and 
Alice guessed who it was, even before she got 
into the court, by the way the people near the 
door began sneezing all at once. 

“ Give your evidence,” said the King. 

“ Sha’n’t,” said the cook. 

The King looked anxiously at the White 
Rabbit, who said in a low voice, “ Your Majesty 
must cross-examine this witness.” 

“ Well, if I must, I must,” the King said with 
a melancholy air, and, after holding his arms and 
frowning at the cook till his eyes were nearly 
out of sight, he said in a deep voice, “ What are 
tarts made of ? ” 

“ Pepper, mostly,” said the cook. 

“ Treacle,” said a sleepy voice behind her. 

“ Collar that Dormouse ! ” the Queen shrieked 
out. “ Behead that Dormouse ! Turn that Dor- 


200 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


mouse out of court ! Suppress him ! Pinch him ! 
Off with his whiskers ! ” 

For some minutes the whole court was in 
confusion, getting the Dormouse turned out, and, 
by the time they had settled down again, the 
cook had disappeared. 

“Never mind!” said the King, with an air 
of great relief. “ Call the next witness.” And 
he added in an undertone to the Queen, 
“ Really, my dear, you must cross-examine the 
next witness. It quite makes my forehead 
ache ! ” 

Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled 
over the list, feeling very curious to see what 
the next witness would be like ; u For they 
haven’t got much evidence yet” she said to 
herself. Imagine her surprise, when the White 
Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill little 
voice, the name “ Alice ! ” 


CHAPTER XII. 


ALICE'S EVIDENCE. 




\ I 






CHAPTER XII. 

Alice’s evidence. 

“ Here ! ” cried Alice, quite forgetting in the 
flurry of the moment how large she had grown 
in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in 
such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box 
with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jury- 
men onto the heads of the crowd below, and 
there they lay sprawling about, reminding her 
very much of a globe of gold-fish she had 
accidentally upset the week before. 

“ Oh, I beg your pardon ! ” she exclaimed in 
a tone of great dismay, and began picking them 
up again as quickly as she could, for the acci- 
dent of the gold-fish kept running in her head, 
203 


204 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 



and she had a vague sort of idea that they must 
be collected at once and put back into the jury- 
box, or they would die. 


Alice’s evidence. 


205 


“ The trial cannot proceed,” said the King in 
a very grave voice, “ until all the jurymen are 
back in their proper places — all” he repeated 
with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as 
he said so. 

Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, 
in her haste, she had put the Lizard in head 
downwards, and the poor little thing was waving 
its tail about in a melancholy way, being quite 
unable to move. She soon got it out again, and 
put it right; “Not that it signifies much,” she 
said to herself: “I should think it would be 
quite as much use in the trial one way up as 
the other.” 

As soon as the jury had a little recovered 
from the shock of being upset, and their slates 
and pencils had been found and handed back to 
them, they set to work very diligently to write 
out a history of the accident, all except the 
Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do 
anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing 
up into the roof of the court. 


206 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


“ What do you know about this business ? ” 
the King said to Alice. 

“Nothing,” said Alice. 

“ Nothing whatever ? ” persisted the King. 

“ Nothing whatever,” said Alice. 

“ That’s very important,” the King said, turn- 
ing to the jury. They were just beginning to 
write this down on their slates, when the White 
Rabbit interrupted : “ Unimportant, your Ma- 
jesty means, of course,” he said in a very respect- 
ful tone, but frowning and making faces at him 
as he spoke. 

“ C/himportant, of course, I meant,” the King 
hastily said, and went on to himself in an under- 
tone, “ important — unimportant — unimportant 
— important” — as if he were trying which 
word sounded best. 

Some of the jury wrote it down “ important,” 
and some “ unimportant.” Alice could see this, 
as she was near enough to look over their 
slates ; “ but it doesn’t matter a bit,” she 
thought to herself. 


Alice’s evidence. 


207 


At this moment the King, who had been for 
some time busily writing in his note-book, called 
out, “ Silence ! ” and read out from his book, 
“Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile 
high to leave the court.” 

Everybody looked at Alice. 

“I’m not a mile high,” said Alice. 

44 Nearly two miles high,” added the 
Queen. 

“ You are,” said the King. 

“ Well, I sha’n’t go, at any rate,” said Alice ; 
44 besides, that’s not a regular rule : you invented 
it just now.” 

44 It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the 
King. 

“Then it ought to be Number One,” said 
Alice. 

The King turned pale, and shut his note- 
book hastily. 44 Consider your verdict,” he said 
to the jury in a low, trembling voice. 

44 There’s more evidence to come yet, please 
your Majesty,” said the White Rabbit, jumping 


208 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 


up in a great hurry : 44 this paper has just been 
picked up.” 

44 What’s in it ? ” said the Queen. 

44 1 haven’t opened it yet,” said the White 
Rabbit, 44 but it seems to be a letter, written by 
the prisoner to — to somebody.” 

44 It must have been that,” said the King, 
44 unless it was written to nobody, which isn’t 
usual, you know.” 

44 Whom is it directed to ? ” said one of the 
jurymen. 

44 It isn’t directed at all,” said* the White 
Rabbit ; 44 in fact, there’s nothing written on 
the outside .” He unfolded the paper as he 
spoke, and added, 44 It isn’t a letter after all : 
it’s a set of verses.” 

44 Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting ? ” 
asked another of the jurymen. 

44 No, they’re not,” said the White Rabbit, 
44 and that’s the queerest thing about it.” (The 
jury all looked puzzled.) 

44 He must have imitated somebody else’s 


Alice’s evidence. 


209 


hand,” said the King. (The jury all brightened 
up again.) 

“ Please your Majesty,” said the Knave, “ I 
didn’t write it, and they can’t prove I did: 
there’s no name signed at the end.” 

“ If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “ that 
only makes the matter worse. You must have 
meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed 
your name like an honest man.” 

There was a general clapping of hands at 
this : it was the first really clever thing the 
King had said that day. 

“ That proves his guilt,” said the Queen. 

“It proves nothing of the sort ! ” said Alice. 
“ Why, you don’t even know what they’re 
about ! ” 

“ Read them,” said the King. 

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 
“Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” 
he asked. 

“ Begin at the beginning,” the King said 
gravely, “ and go on till you come to the end : 
then stop.” 


210 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 

These were the verses the White Rabbit 
read : — 

“ They told me you had been to her, 

And mentioned me to him : 

She gave me a good character, 

But said I could not swim. 

He sent them word I had not gone 
(We know it to be true) : 

If she should push the matter on, 

What would become of you ? 


I gave her one, they gave him two, 
You gave us three or more ; 

They all returned from him to you, 
Though they were mine before. 

If I or she should chance to be 

/ 

Involved in this affair, 

He trusts to you to set them free, 


Exactly as we were. 


Alice’s evidence. 


211 


My notion was that you had been 
(Before she had this fit) 

An obstacle that came between 
Him, and ourselves, and it. 

Don’t let him know she liked them best, 

For this must ever be 
A secret, kept from all the rest, 

Between yourself and me.” 

“ That’s the most important piece of evidence 
we’ve heard yet,” said the King, rubbing his 
hands ; u so now let the jury” — 

“ If any one of them can explain it,” said 
Alice (she had grown so large in the last few 
minutes that she wasn’t a bit afraid of inter- 
rupting him), “I’ll give him sixpence. I 
don’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in 
it.” 

The jury all wrote down on their slates, “ She 
doesn’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in 
it,” but none of them attempted to explain the 
paper. 


212 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 

“ If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, 
“that saves a world of trouble, you know, as 
we needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t 
know,” he went on, spreading out the verses 
on his knee, and looking at them with one eye ; 
“I seem to see some meaning in them, after 
all. 4 — said I could not swim ’ — you can’t 
swim, can you?” he added, turning to the 
Knave. 

The Knave shook his head sadly. “ Do 
I look like it?” he said. (Which he cer- 
tainly did not , being made entirely of card- 
board.) 

“All right, so far,” said the King, and he 
went on muttering over the verses to himself : 
ui We know it to be true ’ — that’s the jury, of 
course — 4 1 gave her one , they gave him two ’ — 
why, that must be what he did with the tarts, 
you know ” — 

“ But it goes on, 4 They all returned from him 
to youf ” said Alice. 


Alice’s evidence. 


213 



44 Why, there they 
are ! ” said the King 
triumphantly, point- 
ing to the tarts on 
the table. “Nothing 
can be clearer than 
that. Then again — 
4 before she had this 
fit ’ — you never had 
tits, my dear, I 
think ? ” he said to 
the Queen. 


44 Never ! ” said the Queen furiously, throw- 
ing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. 
(The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing 


214 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


on his slate with one finger, as he found it made 
no mark ; but he now hastily began again, 
using the ink, that was trickling down his face, 
as long as it lasted.) 

“ Then the words don’t jit you,” said the 
King, looking around the court with a smile. 
There was a dead silence. 

“ It’s a pun ! ” the King added in an angry 
tone, and everybody laughed. “Let the jury 
consider their verdict,” the King said, for about 
the twentieth time that day. 

“ No, no!” said the Queen. “ Sentence first 
— verdict afterwards.” 

“ Stuff and nonsense ! ” said Alice loudly. 
“ The idea of having the sentence first ! ” 

“ Hold your tongue ! ” said the Queen, turn- 
ing purple. 

“ I won’t ! ” said Alice. 

“ Off with her head ! ” the Queen shouted at 
the top of her voice. Nobody moved. 

“Who cares for you?” said Alice (she had 
grown to her full size by this time). “You’re 
nothing but a pack of cards ! ” 



[Page 215.] 





» 











































Alice’s evidence. 


215 


At this the whole pack rose up into the air, 
and came flying down upon her; she gave a 
little scream, half of fright and half of anger, 
and tried to beat them off, and found herself 
lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of 
her sister, who was gently brushing away some 
dead leaves that had fluttered down from the 
trees onto her face. 

u Wake up, Alice dear!” said her sister; 
“ why, what a long sleep you’ve had ! ” 

“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said 
Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she 
could remember them, all these strange Adven- 
tures of hers that you have just been reading 
about ; and when she had finished, her sister 
kissed her, and said, “ It was a curious dream, 
dear, certainly ; but now run in to your tea ; 
it’s getting late.” So Alice got up and ran off, 
thinking while she ran, as well she might, what 
a wonderful dream it had been. 


But her sister sat still just as she left her, 
leaning her head on her hand, watching the 
setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all 
her wonderful Adventures, till she too began 
dreaming after a fashion, and this was her 
dream : — 

First, she dreamed of little Alice herself : — 
once again the tiny hands were clasped upon 
her knee, and the bright, eager eyes were look- 
ing up into hers — she could hear the very 
tones of her voice, and see that queer little toss 
of her head, to keep back the wandering hair 
that would always get into her eyes — and still 
as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole 
place around became alive with the strange 
creatures of her little sister’s dream. 

The long grass rustled at her feet as the 
White Rabbit hurried by — the frightened 
216 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 217 


Mouse splashed his way through the neighbor- 
ing pool — she could hear the rattle of the tea- 
cups as the March Hare and his friends shared 
their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of 
the Queen ordering off her unfortunate guests 
to execution — once more the pig-baby was 
sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates 
and dishes crashed around it — once more the 
shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the 
Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the 
suppressed guinea-pigs, filled the air, mixed up 
with the distant sob of the miserable Mock 
Turtle. 

So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half 
believed herself in Wonderland, though she 
knew she had but to open them again and all 
would change to dull reality — the grass would 
be only rustling in the wind, and the pool 
rippling to the waving of the reeds — the rat- 
tling teacups would change to tinkling sheep- 
bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice 
of the shepherd boy — and the sneeze of the 


218 Alice’s adventures in wonderland. 


baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the 
other queer noises, would change (she knew) 
to the confused clamor of the busy farmyard — 
while the lowing of the cattle in the distance 
would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s 
heavy sobs. 

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same 
little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be 
herself a grown woman ; and how she would 
keep, through all her riper years, the simple and 
loving heart of her childhood ; and how she 
would gather about her other little children, 
and make their eyes bright and eager with many 
a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of 
Wonderland of long-ago : and how she would 
feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a 
pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering 
her own child-life, and the happy summer days. 


THE END. 






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